


Fluent in 'Tucker'

by ellymelly



Category: The Thick of It (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Tags
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-03
Updated: 2018-02-26
Packaged: 2018-03-05 02:59:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 24
Words: 52,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3103037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellymelly/pseuds/ellymelly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of Sam/Tucker one-offs set throughout the four seasons. Mostly harmless fluff.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

“ _I don't want excuses, Malcolm, I want it done. I want it done yesterday. I want it done before I phoned you in the dead of bloody 'All Hallows Eve' but seeing as we're a government distinctly lacking in time machines I'll have to settle for the morning news – preferably before the opposition catches a whiff of our rotting corpse wafting down Downing Street because it'll be your entrails wound around the gates like tinsel, Malcolm.”_

“ _Of course, Prime Minister.”_

“ _I mean it, make this go away.”_

The phone against Tucker's face went dead. He listened to the comforting silence for a moment, relishing the sheer nothingness against his ear for a change. Anything was better than listening to either the desperate begging of ministers or terminal errors that threatened to break free and feed off the newsprint.

Finally, he set the Blackberry on his desk and eyed his empty cup of tea.

“Sam... SAM!”

The second shriek of her name was entirely unnecessary. Sam _always_ heard him the first time.

She pushed open his door carefully in case he was lingering behind it like some kind of vampire bat. It was late. The curtains were still pulled open but there was only a black sky and small array of ever-dying street lights beyond them. The TV he had mounted at the far end of his office was muted so that he didn't have to endure the drone of fifth-rate reporters catching up to yesterday's news.

“Tea...” he muttered tiredly at her. He wasn't being deliberately short or rude, Malcolm was simply so over this day that had been going for longer than he could remember. It hadn't even occurred to him that it was eleven o'clock in the evening and his P.A. was still at his side with a fresh cup of tea and short list of mobiles he could call and have a shout at when he needed. All these years that Sam had been enslaved to him and he hadn't noticed that she _never_ left before him just in case he needed her. He always did.

“Biscuits?” she asked.

He nodded before lifting his head to hiss venom at the silent TV that was flashing unflattering shots of one of his ministers from a story he'd rather explicitly told them to can. He made a mental note to verbally kill the producer then started indexing the top ten most creative ways he could do it.

“Something wrong?” Sam returned with tea and a plate of biscuits. She found her boss on the couch in front of the coffee table, glaring at his Blackberry with eyes that could melt civilisations. “Not again...” she sighed, realising what must have happened. “When do you have to go on air?”

Malcolm leaned over and tugged a biscuit from the plate.

“About eight hours,” he muttered. “I have mere galactic seconds to turn this absolute shit-fuck that our charming PM created on his way home tonight into nothing. I have to give it a new post-code so that the PM can fanmail it safely from his rosey island of cotton wool and bubble wrap. I'm supposed to make it disappear like a fucking magician with my hat and twatty stick. Fetch me a few rabbits preferably with detachable ears if it's not too much trouble! I want to go all Gothic horror on this one.”

Sam _sat_. She had to move his feet ever so slightly on the couch so that she could fit between him and the silk cushions. Even now she couldn't repress a smile at the memory of him threatening to pin the face of every victim he'd fed to the press. He had a wicked sense of humour – quite literally.

He frowned when he saw her extract his laptop from the table, hack his password and start typing. “Why are you there?” Particularly _there_ at the end of his couch.

“Someone has to draft your speech,” Sam shrugged. “It's a darn sight easier than filtering out all the 'fucks' and 'cunts' later in the morning when we're short on time. Why don't you start speaking and I'll see what I can come up with?”

The hilarious thing about trying to filter Malcolm Tucker was that you didn't have to be the world's fastest typist to keep up with his stream of conscious. The majority of his thoughts came out in expletives so vivid and abstract that it was very nearly a second language. Indeed, Sam was fluent in _Tucker_ but as the night went on he ran out of the energy, too tired to swear. Eventually he was flying a few half way decent thoughts around, all of which Sam expanded upon and moved into coherent sentences for him while he busily tore through the flesh of a few mandarins. As a side note, she'd noticed that eating fruit was a weird, coping mechanism. It gave his hands something to do that didn't include stabbing ministers to death with pens.

It took Sam a moment to realise that Tucker wasn't pealing his mandarin any more, or muttering death threats – he was asleep. His head rested against one of the cushions, tilted to the side and calm in a way that the world didn't often get to see him. He looked ten years younger simply by sleeping. In his hand, which was almost on the floor, was a half-opened mandarin.

Sam sighed. She didn't have the heart to wake him. If her maths was accurate, he'd been going for almost three days straight. Even though she was certain that he was some kind of super-human monster he had his limits.

Without any fuss or noise, she took his Blackberry and carefully went through the PM's requests for the cover story. Sam spent the remainder of the night on the couch eating his mandarins, writing Tucker's speech. She tossed in a few abrasive (but clean) quotes so that they'd know it was Malcolm, edited a few 'fucks' that she'd missed the first time round before finally printing it and leaving his speech on the table next to where he was sleeping. She'd pulled a soft throw over him during the night and put the only surviving mandarin safely back up on the table where it belonged.

Work started in an hour. Sam didn't see the point in going home so she retreated to the bathroom instead to change into one of the spare suits that she kept in the office for situations exactly like this. It said a lot about her job that she had enough supplies to live out of Downing Street for a week. Hell if there was an apocalypse she'd be the only one prepared. Not that anyone would notice. This place was the zombie hive. They strolled past her daily carrying whatever limbs Tucker ripped off them.

She gave her boss as many minutes rest as possible before returning to Tucker's office with a dry cleaned suit, laying it over his chair. He might look all peaceful and adorable, breathing quietly on the couch but the minute she woke him Sam knew that he'd unleash a storm of abuse on whomever was closest which reminded her, she really should re-organise his day so that he didn't kill off any of the small fish coming for their first meeting. Maybe she could throw in a few appointments with his least favourite examples of humanity – a good shouting usually got most of the hostility out of his system.

First up – Meet the Press.

Sam placed Malcolm's Blackberry in his hand without waking him then quickly evacuated his office. She sat behind her desk and dialled his number.

The phone in Tucker's hand vibrated. His fingers curled around it as though the device were an extension of his skin. The damn thing had been wired into his brain for the past ten years. When it woke, he woke.

“ _Tucker's knackery for MP's past their use by date...”_

Sam lifted her hand to her mouth, hiding a grin. “You have a meeting in half an hour. Your car is outside and there's tea on your desk.” She hung up swiftly, leaving him to rant apocalyptic buggery at his phone while she confirmed his appointment and politely told a few half-rate hacks to fuck-off about whatever may or may not have happened to the PM yesterday.

*~*~*

Hours later, Sam peeked around the corner of his office door carrying the world's largest skinny hazelnut latte.

“Watch your step – there's blood all over the floor...” Tucker muttered, waving at the remnants of his speech he'd left scattered over the carpet.

“But not yours,” Sam replied, stepping over the discarded speech. She set his coffee down beside him and grinned. “He owes you.”

“Yeah well, if Tom _ever_ says anything remotely similar to what he allegedly said last night – in public – I will have it printed and embossed onto the doors of parliament my-fucking-self and nail his hands up beside it. It's an honest to fuck miracle that the universe let that one slip by.”

“Ancient Rome – you really are upset.” He reserved those insults for the lowest levels of the human order. “Shall I cancel the rest of your appointments or do you fancy a bit more exercise?”

“Sweet heart, nothing can exercise these demons out of this carcass.” He sipped his coffee, not missing that she'd brought his favourite. She was probably trying to make him safe again for mortals to speak to. “But yeah, why not. Send something tasty you know – something I can chew a bit. Fangs get too long if they're not filed back.”

Those few smiles he'd snuck in were as close to, 'thank you' as she would get but in Malcolm's world he'd practically sent her a card with little love hearts.

“I might even go out to eat,” he added, before she left. “See if there's any lunch at DoSAC.”

*~*~*

With the monster prowling the halls of DoSAC, everything was peaceful at Downing Street. Sam picked up the largest pile of complaints she'd ever seen and carried them over to Malcolm's office. Incredibly, these weren't complaints against him but rather useless, trivial whinges against people so boring she had to look them up in the database to put faces to names. Malcolm only insisted on keeping copies so that he could dig shit up on anyone who had ever been _anyone_ at some point in the future. It was a work ethic that served him well. People joked that Malcolm Tucker knew were all the political skeletons were buried – they were only half right. Tucker knew where every skeleton that had ever been shed on the political stage laid and all their illegitimate baby skeletons too. Hell he even had a political pet cemetery somewhere.

*~*~*

“Shall we continue this somewhere more private – just, pick up your bloody stumps and drag them this way, to my office.” Tucker could be heard miles down the hallway with some poor, terrified cabinet minister in tow. He thought it was odd when he sauntered past Sam's desk that his P.A. wasn't there to give him her usual private grin whenever he was about to make a kill. Some might go as far as to say that he over-dramatised events simply to get a rise out of her.

A moment later, he found out why.

Sound asleep, laid out on his couch was Sam, curled up to a cushion. Malcolm backtracked out of his own office so fast he nearly trampled the MP into the carpet. The last thing he needed was for anyone to see a young woman asleep in his office. Not even Sam could tailor his ass out of that story.

“Ah – second thoughts, I fancy a tea,” Tucker said lightly, closing the door to his office before the MP could sneak a look. “Follow me to the kitchen, won't you, so I can pour scalding water over your limp cock, see if we can't give it a bit of a wake up because you're going to need balls the size of Miller's head to get yourself out of this mess.”

  
  



	2. Chapter 2

When you were under the employ of Malcolm _Fucking_ Tucker, you learned very quickly that the dominant form of communication was spilled forth as raw, unadulterated and wildly inappropriate metaphor.

It could be a strange experience, especially when you were half a dozen layers deep in a perverted analogy with more dots per inch than a Peter Jackson tragedy. It was a fantasy your brain scrubbed off with stomach acid and doubled the leading cause of unsanctioned bi-partisan lobotomies (the remainder were self inflicted during recovery from a 'Tuckering').

It was not uncommon to see members of either party lingering in corners, heads against the soothing concrete like the un-dead. The chosen few were left strewn over the political battlefield, wrapping themselves in quick-bond and making damn fucking certain they kept track of every pet name and fictional location Tucker's maelstrom invented in case the topic of rage shifted to their ass and its imminent parting from the spine.

A very long time ago somewhere between latte's and carnage, Sam discovered that 99% of the trash Malcolm talked was a _rouse_.

He would kill her for thinking it but Malcolm was a small dog with the biggest ribcage, bark and ID tag that read, _'pure fuck'_ because that was what he was going to do to whomever tried to pet him. Still, Sam had seen his bluff called by people with _real_ power and that vulnerable silence of desperation that followed unsettled her more than another tumbler finding its demise against the wall in a spray of death.

Without words, Malcolm was lost. Words were his armour – his bark and his soul. If he wasn't fighting, then the political universe was on the verge of a stall.

Knowledge was Tucker's sword.

He kept some very nasty secrets against a precious few people. His only protection in the world was the ability to fell the towers on which everyone else stood. There was no point controlling the masses – they were meaningless blobs of salt froth evaporating off the sand. He spent all of is time owning the hearts of the moon and sun so that he could halt the tide.

Strictly speaking, that wasn't in his job description. He was Director of Communications not 'Chief Angle of Darkness'.

“Sam... SAM!” Malcolm waited for Sam's patient face to peak around his door. “Could you send an ambulance over to DoSAC for Nicola Murray? Yeah – might need a second one for her head as it's coming separately. Later – after I'm through with the secret burial and demonic rites, I need to borrow your car.”

He might as well just call it, 'his' car. These days he used it more than she did.

“Is it still parked at your house?” Sam hadn't seen it in weeks.

“Oh _fuck_...” he hissed. He'd entirely forgotten about the Audi sitting in his driveway collecting dew.

“I'll call you a cab. To your house. To get my car.”

He was tempted to tear a few very small strips off Sam but she hadn't brought him any biscuits or tea in the last hour and she wasn't likely to if he went all Malciavellian on her. Malcolm really wanted biscuits, so he deflected his temper to Nicola Murray, whose irritating drivel was continuing to seep out the radio in his room like putrid swamp fog.

“Oh yeah – say it again... Let me get you a nice small box with no air holes so you'll feel more comfortable. Your coming across more closeted than Tom Cruise on a Spice Girl tour.”

Sam lofted an eyebrow. It was a bit like listening to road rage.

“You're going to wish you were being airfreighted to Brazil on the back of an Albatross with a crooked wing and bad drinking problem doing circles over Ant-fucking-tarctica. Are you taking notes?” he looked up to Sam, who was scratching a few things in her diary while he ranted.

“Someone has to write your memoirs,” she shrugged.

“Seriously?” There was a warning glint of venom in his eyes. Nobody quoted him unless they wanted their fingers plaited.

Sam tore the page out of her diary and handed it to him. His extremely Scottish eyebrows folded down for a moment before he broke into a deeply amused chuckle.

“Fair-a-fucking-nough...”

It was a petrol bill for her car.

“You may have been raised by wolves,” Sam added, closing her diary, “but I was raised by vampires. We never say a word.”

It would be an outright lie to say Tucker didn't watch his P.A. saunter away with a dark grin on his lips. She was broken in every way he liked and he had the distinct feeling that he was seeping into her cracks, splintering them further.

“They should get you to run the country...” he called after her.

She stopped, hand sliding down his door frame as though it were his blackened soul.

“You wouldn't like that,” Sam insisted. “There'd be nothing for you to do.”

*~*~*

“Where's Tucker? Hmm where's the chief rodent?” A bald man with a lot of repressed frustration parted the interns as he drew uncomfortably close to Sam's desk. “Has he evacuated the ship already – is there some serious listing that the government should be aware of?”

Sam didn't reply to Julius yet. She wanted to make absolutely certain that she knew which crisis he was referring to before she fed him any information he wasn't already privy to. Hell sometimes he just wandered down for a bit of a stroll.

“He better not be loitering in the bushes out front the PM's residence in Dover... is he? Sammy...”

Maybe he was, maybe he wasn't but she was absolutely positive Julius's body was about to go in four directions simultaneously if he called her fucking 'Sammy' again.

“Would you like me to find out where he is and have him call you?” she replied sweetly, as she imagined stapling post-it notes to his crown.

“Yes. You do that then. Mail him my heart and tell him it's bleeding all over the morning papers.”

“I'll pass that on.”

*~*~*

Malcolm didn't answer her call which meant he was bloody well down in Dover. Fuck, she hoped there were a few life vests on the Titanic.

_Your favourite reindeer shat all over the carpet._

_X S_

She sighed and set her phone to one side. It barely introduced itself to the desk when Malcolm's reply buzzed in.

_The one with the broken antler and half a tail? I thought I told you to leave a fuck-load of carrots out back and something about expressly never wanting to see it inside the house again?_

_X M_

The side of Sam's lip curled up.

_It misses Santa. It's going to share its heartbreak with the other reindeer shortly._

_X S_

There was a slightly longer pause this time.

_brb – making venison for dinner._

_X M_

*~*~*

Sam turned off the TV and its hilarious interview with a particularly flustered Julius who kept rubbing his bald head as if he were some kind of lucky Buddha.

_Congratulations, the venison was wonderful. Michelin star._

_X S_

_Michelin stars are for French cunts._

_X M_

Sam grinned at her phone. She never confused his humour for insult.

_P.S. Go the fuck home. It's Christmas for fuck's sake. You better not be there when I get there. I have a hot date with the evening news and I have a feeling she's really going to put out._

_X M_

*~*~*

She was doing several things that would have caused lesser mortals to have their skin flayed and bone fragments mixed with gunpowder and turned into the evening's entertainment.

Sam was in _his_ chair, feet on _his_ desk, smoking one of _his_ cigars. Malcolm wasn't sure why the only intelligent thing that he could think to open with was, “Since when does your posh skirt smoke?”

Malcolm barely passed at pretending to smoke. He only kept a box on his desk so that the Oxford Club wouldn't kick him out of their sad sweaty soirees. He had to keep up the pretence that he could handle anything the others could, even if it was literally killing them. He certainly wasn't going to let her follow suit.

“Put that expensive fucking thing down,” he insisted, stalking over to her. He took the cigar from her and put it out – but not before taking a deep whiff himself to prove a point.

Sam couldn't help shifting in her seat. Her lips had touched that moments before his and it shouldn't have felt intimate but it did.

She would have gone as far as to say it was 'seductive' until he nearly choked.

“These things are purely ornamental,” he covered, smashing it into a saucer. “I told you to go home.”

“I told you to be careful,” she countered, shrugging. “They _know_ Malcolm. Cool your blood hound scent and let me do the digging on this one. I'll call in sick for a few days. They won't so much as blink a precious false eyelash.”

“I don't think-”

“Good.” It was her job to protect him from everything, including his own stupid ideas. “Presents.” Sam tapped a small pile of items neatly stacked on his desk. “It is, as you say, Christmas. At least it will be in an hour or so.” It wasn't like he had a home to rush back to.

“Aw, you shouldn't have...” Malcolm found himself grinning. She'd even put a bow around one of the piles of paperwork. “Have you been digging up graves again for me?” he asked, untying one of the bundles.

“Well, it's been quiet lately. I have to find some way to kill time. I'll leave you with the spoils. Merry Christmas. I'll set your dark elves to work in the morning. They're all drunk as fuck right now.”

Sam finally relinquished ownership of Tucker's chair, sliding past him. He took her place, sitting himself in front of he absolute treasure trove that she'd left. That was the thing with Sam, attention to detail. She picked up on things that not even his hawk-eyed-paranoia caught. Maybe she was telling the truth and she really was raised by vampires. Her teeth were quite sharp. Malcolm absently wondered what they would feel like biting into his neck.

He cleared his throat and shifted awkwardly. No. It was not a good idea to extend the metaphor that far – not unless he was prepared for it to mutate into a scene from Twilight.

Heaven-for-fucking-bid.

*~*~*

Considering her car was now ditched out front, Sam decided to take that home instead of slumming it through the snow and ice on some of London's finest buses. She'd swiped the keys from his jacket earlier, along with a Twix bar that she needed more than he did.

For a moment she glanced up to his window. There was a light creeping out from around the edges even with the curtain drawn. She wondered how long he'd stay there – probably all night considered the wealth of material she'd just gifted him. It was a project that Sam had been sinking her claws into all year. If there was one thing that she had learned working under the Great and Powerful Heart of Darkness, it was to _listen._ Always listen. People as a species were utterly shit at keeping secrets. They slipped out continuously all you had to do was have your ears open and your mouth shut. It was certainly true what people said of her, she never said a goddamn thing. She listened though. Listened to everything that went on inside the walls. People forgot she was there. People forgot that she was an extension of Tucker – an extra limb – another sense. Sam was his good eye and moral compass.

Tucker's sword was forged by Sam and her only request of the world was that she got to watch him wield it.

*~*~*

“Sam... SAM!”

Malcolm blinked. Frowned, checked his watch and looked up at the empty door. No Sam. No tea. No biscuits.

“SAM!” he shouted again.

Definitely no Sam.

_The fuck are you?_

_X M_

He un-muted the TV and threw his phone down unfairly hard. He snatched a mandarin and tore its insides apart.

_Hunting reindeer._

_X S_

Tucker stopped and let his lips part in a large festive grin. That's his girl.

_Bring some biscuits back, will ya?_

_X M_

  



	3. Chapter 3

Sam back-handed him so hard that Tucker staggered backwards into his desk. His hand brushed against his cheek as blood pounded to the spot where his P.A. had smacked the living fuck out of him.

He'd fucking earned her ire too – really worked at it this morning. Malcolm knew how to press her buttons and he wore her down from first light to right now. He knew that he'd gone too far half a paragraph ago but he couldn't stop the filth and dark shit spilling out of his lips. It was toxic – he was toxic and he held his tongue now in disgrace of himself.

“Bastard,” Sam whispered, cupping her sore hand. Her eyes were ringed by the gleam of unshed tears. “How dare you destroy everything that you have built. This building. This office – that offensive mockery of art on the wall. The man who read the news this morning and the frightened rats that call themselves politicians. All of it, Malcolm. They are coming for you, _yes_ but they they better come prepared because we'll give them a blood bath like politics has never seen before. I will not stand here and watch you play dead because you're far from it. You feed off conflict. I've watched you in the midst of battle.” There was nothing Sam liked more than unleashing a wound-up Malcolm into a flock of pigeons.

“This is not the kind of war you want to be a part of,” he warned her. “There'll be bits all over the floor – martyrs strung up in the streets and blood on every door. You have no idea how far into hell we could go. You'll be fucking begging for the flames before I'm done with those motherfuckers on the committee. You do _not_ want to see what happens if I try.”

If looks could kill, Tucker, his desk – the chair and the portrait behind Sam's gaze would all be dead.

“Get your coat. We start with the Baroness.”

*~*~*

“Come on Malcolm, that's _really_ unfair...” Ollie complained. He had that annoying sulk that school boys often got when they were being made to run errands. Though a reasonable height, Ollie's shoulders were hunched and his curled hair flattening in complaint.

Malcolm on the other hand, looked as though he were about to take on a Great White shark and have fin-soup for tea.

“Are you or are you not an envoy of the British government?” he growled sharply at the inferior underling.

“Well...”

“Then bloody get out there and do as I say.” Malcolm didn't even have the patience to make up an horrific insult to hasten Ollie's progress. Instead he levelled a glare that could destroy small cities and that seemed to do the trick.

“Dammit Malcolm!” Ollie gave in and turned tail.

Malcolm watched him like a fucking velociraptor. A moment later, his phone buzzed.

“ _I'm busy,”_ he snarled at it.

“ _So... you're on your way to the committee hearing then?”_

“ _Bollocks!”_ Malcolm hung up on Sam, turned and awkwardly ran out of DoSAC.

*~*~*

“I _can_ tell you apart, you realise...” Sam eyed Jamie sternly. She hadn't worked out what the Scot was doing snooping around but it wasn't to her advantage – of that she was sure. “Is there any particular reason that you're trying to break into Malcolm's office today or should I put a note of 'general affray' next to your name for when he comes back?”

Jamie straightened up, tearing his attention away from the lock and attempted to give a charming look. It came out as something horrific. “Come on now lass, don' be like that.”

Sam folded her arms crossly. “I haven't forgotten your past life as a journalist.”

“And what are you in this new life of yours – part of the Night's fucking Watch? I thought that was for old bastards...”

Sam was well versed in all science fiction and fantasy references. You had to be if you wanted to translate Tucker on a daily basis. “I'm not the Watch – I'm the _wall_.” She was standing like one too, inching closer to Jamie.

“They weren't wrong about you. You really are his little prairie dog.”

“Wall of ice...” she corrected, calmly. “Do you have a message for Malcolm or are you just here for the biscuits?”

Jamie didn't look happy. “I'll take a biscuit. Not one of those shit ones either.”

Irritatingly Jamie didn't leave after having his fill of biscuits. He'd taken up residence on the green couch in front of her desk, resting his shoes on it no less. There was nothing demure about an ex-hack and whatever training he'd received under Malcolm had sharpened his abrasive personality to something quite vile. Shame. Sam had always had rather a fancy for his kind.

“Are you going to be here all night?” she was tempted to staple him to the seat to pass the time.

“I'd be gone in a flash if you let me into the bastard's office.” Silence. “That'd be a 'no'.” More deafening silence. “Well then I'll just be here leaving crumbs on the upholstery.”

“Could you just – tilt your head slightly to the left...” Sam requested rather ominously.

Despite himself Jamie did as she asked. “Why?”

Sam smiled. “It's more easy to fantasise about flaying your alive that way.”

_Jesus..._ thought Jamie quietly to himself.

*~*~*

“She's scary – honestly mate – I looked into her cold, dead eyes and I saw your ugly mug staring back.” Jamie was well into Malcolm's stock of scotch, strutting about his office in the wee hours of the morning. “You could have told her I was here to help you know. It wasn't very nice fending for myself.”

Tucker was oddly stoic, flicking through a file from Ollie. “I don't want her involved in this.”

Jamie nearly choked on the drink. “Does she know that?”

“Don't be a prick.”

Jamie raised his hands innocently, nearly choking out the apology as if the words were melting his throat. “This is serious shit though – real fucking dark fuck, Malcolm. I should sell your pathetic arse back to the paper for a tidy sum. I could retire – somewhere with green fucking hills and plenty of well groomed sheep.”

Malcolm smirked. “Shame you're loyal as an intestinal parasite.”

“Gotta live somehow,” he shrugged. Jamie held up a paper. “See this? Such a tragedy... Another career in tiny shreds. Your fingerprints are mysteriously absent.”

Tucker eyed the front page and its shaming story featuring the Baroness and a certain scandal. “I'm sure I don't know what you mean. Ollie's paw prints are right in the middle.”

“Yeah well, dogs do what master says,” Jamie folded it and set it to one side. “It won't be enough. The committee is meeting tomorrow as planned – though with the regrettable absence of the beloved Baroness who will be taking some wholly unplanned leave for the rest of her life. What are you going to do about the other fucks?”

Malcolm rubbed a throbbing vein that popped up between his eyes and branched out across his forehead like some great fucking roadmap.

“Sam – SAM!”

Silence. Malcolm frowned and stalked over to the door, opening it a crack to peer out. “She's not bloody there!”

“She probably got tired of all your shouting and went home,” Jamie pointed out. His P.A. Was never around. Actually, now that he thought of it, Jamie wasn't entirely sure that he still had one. Maybe Tucker really had killed it as rumour suggested.

“Sam lives here,” Malcolm replied. He shut the door and rested back against it, acutely aware that the vein pulsed harder. He extracted his Blackberry.

_Where'd you fuckin get to? Biscuits._

_M_

No 'X' this time.

“I wouldn't worry,” Jamie said, rather unwisely. “She's probably traded you in for an easier life of self harm and sexual slavery.” Malcolm's eyes were fucking fire. Jamie was pretty certain that a silent Malcolm was more terrifying than any of the creative shit storms he'd flung at the world. Must be love then. Heaven fucking help the world.

With no biscuits on offer, Malcolm was forced to rat around his desk for a mandarin. Their ever-present existence on his desk was one of the universe's greatest mysteries. Jamie had seriously considered the possibility that they were growing straight out of the woodwork. Hell there were enough piles of shit on it for fertiliser.

“You're in really deep, silted fuck,” Jamie pointed out needlessly. “The kind that gets into all your clothes and breathing orifices. It's going to take more than one blood ritualised Baroness to float you of out it.”

“I know that. I'm not a blank-eyed intern trying to decipher a water cooler. I'm the fucking atoms of water bashing around the inside of the machine held in by a repressive capsule of PC twattery. Do you know what it's like _listening_ to a panel of hermit-crab shells speak for hours on end only to be gifted with bound copies of their fucking diarrhoea? I'd rather be strung up outside Buckingham Palace with my entrails on show. There's more dignity at a – what?”

Jamie had his hands up in defence to Malcolm's bitter rambling. “It's late. I'm bored and there are no biscuits. Why am I here?”

“I need you to talk to Tom.”

If there'd been a stake nearby, Jamie would have stabbed himself through the heart to save Malcolm the trouble. “The Prime Minister? I thought he was a flayed corpse you let wash up on a beach in April?”

“Yeah well, now I need him to sew his own limbs on and paddle back across the channel.”

*~*~*

Sam opened her door to a fountain of Malcolm Tucker. He seemed to be entirely unaware that it was two in the morning and that he'd forgotten to put on a jacket despite the weather giving London a stiff bollocking.

“Do you mind continuing this inside?” Sam interrupted. There was no hint of annoyance in her tone despite the fact that he'd hauled her out of a perfectly good bed for a dressing down she didn't deserve. Honestly half the time she suspected it was his own form of therapy that he clung to as a coping mechanism to get him through every hell-locked hour of politics.

He didn't even draw breath as she led him into her house. Sam made him sit when he tried to vent in the corner like a vampire afraid of the fire. Then she appeared with a plate of biscuits and cup of tea, both of which she left inside his reach. It wasn't long before he was sipping tea and gnawing off biscuits. The effect was calming. He was essentially a junkie for British stereotypes.

“Hi,” she finally said to him, when he stopped shouting and relaxed back against the cushions.


	4. Chapter 4

“Your phone.”

Sam's eyebrow arched just as high as his, curving accusingly. “My phone?”

“Yeah – your fucking phone,” Malcolm muttered, more pitiably sad than vengeful. That's why Sam always took the care to sate him with sugar. It was the equivalent of filing back his fangs and putting a generous ring of salt on the floor around him. Rumour was she had a fantastic set of stakes in her drawer for emergencies.

“My phone is taking a break,” she replied simply. “What's so important that you extracted your consciousness from the Downing street matrix in the wee hours? Will I read about it in this morning's headlines or are we at full, front page spread?”

Malcolm Tucker was about to say, _'we're out of biscuits'_ when he realised how unbelievably pathetic that sounded in the sober light of his P.A.'s living room. Hell he was tempted to hang his own arse out to dry, fuck knows he deserved it but sometimes he got tired and little things built up into enormous towers of fuck until they blocked out the sun and cast apocalyptic shadows on the world and the only island of solace left was a tray of Sam's biscuits. They weren't condiments, they were survival. He'd been sitting there in silence for some time, shifting his cutting gaze between his cup of tea and the tray of biscuits.

“Was it _biscuits_?” Sam asked patiently. “You and Jamie don't need a P.A. - you need a mother.”

Right now he needed a cushion, which he stole from the couch, clutching it against his chest.

“Right – so...” Sam fought back the urge to yawn. This certainly wasn't the first time she'd had her boss tucked into the corner of her couch. The novelty had worn off especially when he resembled a five year old hiding in a cubby house. She was tempted to get a second set of keys cut so that he could just let himself in instead of waking her from a perfectly good sleep. “Blankets are in the chest over there. Coffee's in the kitchen. Try not to scare the cat.”

“Sam – _Sam_.”

She turned, nearly at the door. Her hand hovered over the light switch. He always called her twice but this time the second didn't appear to have any purpose than to cause her to linger. “I got your text,” she admitted, making him tilt his head like a puzzled, plague carrying rodent.

“You didn't reply.”

“You didn't ask nicely...” Sam winked and then turned off the light.

*~*~*

_Your coffee is vile. Wailing nuns are more use raising the dead than the thin veneer of caffeine your machine left in my cup._

_XX M_

_Your Scottish twin has left a trail of crumbs on my desk. Shall I let him into your office?_

_X S_

She knew very well that Malcolm was still camped out on her couch even though she'd returned to the office to set up for the morning ritual of press interviews. It was a process of blood-letting that Malcolm insisted on doing himself, if only so that he could indulge in the simple joy of watching a hack dissolve into a stuttering, whimpering mess. She had several such candidates lining up already. Sam softened them up a bit with press packs and cooed at them when they started glancing toward the windows in the hope of leaping to freedom.

_Fuck that cunt. Tell him to wait in line like all the other poor soulless fools._

_X M_

Her smile evaporated as the least enticing bald icon nudged his way past the press. “Julius...” Sam smiled sweetly, offering him a press pack.

He lifted his hands to fend it off. “No, no. Here on more serious business I'm afraid. Where is the little mung bean?” He didn't give Sam a chance to reply when he spotted his other least-favourite-scot. The place was overrun. “Jamie... who lashed your corpse to the deck of the Titanic?”

“I did it my fucking self,” Jamie replied, tearing his way through the innards of a poncy croissant. “Like the view – lots of big, fuck-off ice bergs, excellent string quartet and cheap champagne. Actually, haven't seen the navigator have you? Tall. Ghoulish. Angry – sort of a semi-demon that had a shitty trade off from the devil where he got the horns and goatee but none of the demonic superpowers.”

“You two are hilarious. What am I meant to do? Score you out of ten...”

Jamie leaned toward Sam. “I'd let you score me out of ten.”

“All right e-fucking-nough. Stop pissing around Sam and get into my fucking office you pair of twats.” Malcolm's entrance was marked by a 'parting of the press' who threw themselves against the walls to avoid any accidental contact. “Go on, fuckity in. In. In. In.” He didn't see the little smile Sam gave before turning on the under-age squabble of press. “Right now – Julius Caesar, the fifteen iteration of his line, inbred for millennia, left your laurel wreath on the train? To what do we owe the honour?”

Julius couldn't help but touch his bald head. “There are whispers, Malcolm,” Julius began in his more serious, slightly stilted tone. He didn't dare sit. “Whispers that involve you and a date with a prison cell.”

“Yeah, no yer right.” Malcolm strutted about his office, getting in some of his morning exercise. “I often like to book myself into our penitentiary system for a bit of R&R. It's cheaper than Portsmith and all the meals are included.”

“Malcolm.”

“Didn't your mother ever tell you not to pay heed to whispers that you happen to overhear lurking outside other people's bedrooms?”

“The only thing lurking outside your bedroom are cobwebs,” Julius protested rather calmly, even getting a rise out of Jamie. He had to re-adjust his glasses. Those heavy frames started to slip when he sweat. “It's being whispered in the foyer of parliament. Everyone's heard it.”

“I haven' heard any whispers,” Jamie shrugged.

“You listened to too much fuckin' Celtic trash as a young lad and -”

“Julius!” Malcolm and Jamie shouted together. Anyone who ever talked shit about anything Scottish was in danger of a tag-team murder.

“Look I'm _just saying_ that there's a lot of discussion swarming around the outcome of this inquiry.” To his credit, Julius didn't say anything at all about the mandarin sticker that Malcolm stuck to his great, gleaming forehead as he spoke.

“Sorry,” Jamie paused, arms folding in Julius's general direction. “I don't even know why you're here. You've materialised like a melanoma after a summer holiday.”

“Contrary to your internal fiction, we're on the same side.”

“Is the Prime Minister sacking me?” Malcolm shifted, a touch more seriously.

“No,” Julius replied honestly. “The last time he tried that there was so much blood on the floor they had to burn down the building to get rid of the stains.”

Malcolm smirked.

“I'm here to help.”

*~*~*

Sam waited as long as she could before knocking on Malcolm's door. The nest of young press chicks were starting to flap about uneasily and she didn't like being responsible for so many hatchlings. When he didn't reply, she turned the handle and carefully opened the door.

Jamie was in Malcolm's chair, feet on his antique desk peering at a mandarin in frustration.

“Honestly, is there nothing but fucking fruit in this office? The man has a problem and it's not his dependency on morphine.”

“Where's Malcolm?”

“He had to go out.”

“Out the window?” It was a fair question. Sam hadn't seen him leave and there was only one door to his office.

“Out of phase. Out of body. Outer limits – who knows. Now, have you or have you not got a clutch of press for me to shout at?”

_Very funny. I can tell you two apart._

_X S_

_That's not what he said at the Christmas party._

_X M_

Sam dropped her phone.  _Fuck_ . Fuck fuck fuck fuck  _fuck._


	5. Chapter 5

“Last time that mad fuck gets use of my office!” Malcolm lifted his lip like a rabid dog and hissed at the plate of mandarins. Jamie, in all his infinite hilarity, had drawn an array of faces on the fruit so he'd feel extra guilty about tearing their skin off. He was even less amused to find his name card changed to 'Wanker' – mostly because it lacked any flare or finesse usually attributed to their playful insults. Malcolm knocked it off the desk in despair with a flap of his wiry arm. If they didn't have the energy to insult each other properly then something was definitely wrong.

Here, in private, he took a moment to sigh and rest his head in the comfortable pit of his hands. It was all well and good to joke but there really was a prison cell with his name on it. A very real, very cold room with bars and terrible room service where no amount of spin could buy him one of Sam's biscuits. He was running scared and knew it. Maybe he really should take Jamie's generous advice and scamper off to some extradition-free hovel in the Pacific ocean. Apparently the whole immigration system could be arranged to fail long enough to -

“That's what I thought.”

“Jesus – _fuck!_ ” Malcolm startled so hard he nearly fell off his chair. He'd thought he was alone in his office but something shifted on the couch and turned around to face him, hair askew. Sam. Why was it always Sam?

“You've been treading disaster all week and you didn't think I'd notice? I tear holes in alibis for a living, Malcolm. What's up?”

“What's 'up' is my fucking blood pressure. You nearly gave me a goddamn heart attack and a fucking aneurysm simultaneously. Great big bollocking brain bleed.” His hands went in a few zillion directions as he tried to mime a brain explosion. Maybe she was the one that had been drawing on all his fucking fruit...

Sam was unmoved. He always alliterated when she caught him in a half-truth. It was his tell. “What are you planning?”

“Nothing.” Malcolm shifted back in his chair, brooding.

“What are you planning?”

“It's not a plan.” He picked up another mandarin but stopped short of peeling off its face. Fuck. Now he had feelings for fruit.

“What are you planning?”

“Barely even a draft. Look,” he put the mandarin back in the bowl. “It's a little bit of one-off revenge that we may or may not be able to use as leverage against a few key panellists on the inquiry.”

Silence.

“Okay!” Malcolm relented. “So... it's borderline espionage but it's not like I've got a lot to lose in the freedom department right now. We're sort of more in the bending rules territory. What? Are you gonna slap me again? Is that your plan. I wouldn't say that I exactly disliked the experience.”

Sam ignored all of his usual banter and rising temptation to grant his wish. “You _know_ something,” she realised, starting to pace in his office. “That's why Julius dropped by. He's got his ear to the ground and somewhere in the depths of our depraved parliament a pin's dropped and he came running to you like a faithful puppy.”

“I wouldn't adopt a Julius puppy if he was the last stray in the universe.”

Sam wasn't panicking, she was thinking.

“Look – did you do this to my mandarins?” Malcolm added, holding one up accusingly when he couldn't bear the silence any longer. “It's not very funny. I have a heart. I dust the ice off it once a year and hang it in the doorway during festive occasions.”

“Yes, it's very small.” She agreed. “We use it to decorate the tiny tree at reception.” Sam had to put a hand over her mouth to stop herself. Usually she _thought_ those comebacks rather than uttering them to her highly strung boss. _Shit_. He was staring at her. Worse. She couldn't read his face. Was he amused, impressed, furious? Honestly it was impossible to tell. Maybe they were all the same emotion to him.

“Sam.”

“Yes.” Why'd she go and mention Christmas again? Jesus. She was starting to blush under her thinning layer of foundation.

“Biscuits.”

“ _Yes.”_ With that, she escaped, closing the door on her way out. She didn't catch the smile on his lips.

*~*~*

“Pygmy Jerboas!”

Julius stopped mid-stride down the high street, clutching his sad looking sandwich wrapped in excessive layers of gladwrap. An ominous ghoul had appeared, shadowing him. “What?” he finally asked, when he couldn't shake it off. “If you're Death come to warn me I've already been served notice by your Scottish twin.”

Malcolm, as was custom, ignored him. “The smallest rodent in the world. Teeny tiny... Teeth so small they can't make it through the cheese on a mouse trap. That's what you are, Julius. The smallest rodent left on the ship.”

“What is it _now,_ Malcolm?”

Malcolm slipped a note straight into Julius's trench coat pocket before he could protest. “Need you to do a little digging for me between your sandwiches and tea.”

“Malcolm – you know I can't just go hunting around. I could find _anything_. You're not the only one burying skeletons in the lawns.”

“Sure you can _old friend_ ,” Malcolm clapped him on the back in a display that would seem friendly to anyone else. All Malcolm's skeletons were in a forest so he had nothing to worry about. “Because I've got a wonderful picture book at home that I'd _love_ to share with my hack friends next time I have them over for a drink.”

Julius could feel his head starting to sweat. “One day I'm going to burn your house to the ground and your stash of photographs with it.”

“Hell doesn't burn, Julius,” Malcolm was still grinning in an unnerving fashion. “Cheerio then. Looking forward to hearing from you.”

“Ta ta...” Julius much preferred it when Malcolm was swearing. A 'friendly' 'polite' Malcolm could only mean trouble.

*~*~*

“That's a terrible code name...” Jamie leaned on the opposite side of Sam's car.

“Why is it terrible?” Sam actually sounded put out as she opened the door and slipped into the driver's seat.

Jamie took the passenger seat and closed the door – but not before he folded his seemingly infinite layers of coats carefully in. She couldn't think why but Jamie reminded her of a bat. Maybe it was because he only came out at night.

“If your intention is to spy,” he explained, “selecting a code name from the most famous spy franchise in the world probably isn't an ideal cover.”

“Wow Jamie – a whole sentence without profanity. I'm proud of you.”

“Oh hold your fuckin' scorn, Money Penny – this is what I get for tryin' to be nice.”

Sam grinned. That was better. “Never change. Malcolm put a lot of work into you.”

“Yeah well he taught me how to offend in four languages and wire the unwanted ministers into the feeding chambers of the press gallery. Now, what miserable cunt has the unfortunate pleasure of being stalked by us today?”

Sam handed him a file before pulling out of the driveway. Jamie flicked through it and sighed, tossing it on the dashboard. “I'm going to get my prison tattoo now.”

_Money Penny and Bond in play._

_X S_

_Jamie is not fucking Bond. You tell him I said that._

_X M_

“What?” Jamie turned to Malcolm's P.A.

“You better be Q.”

“No. I'm fucking Bond. I'm a Scottish Bond.”

 


	6. Chapter 6

Q and Money Penny pulled up outside an opulent London apartment draped in endless curtains of fairy lights that reminded Sam of glow worms fucking with cave flies. A sort of – forest of death but with pretty lights and faint festive music Any more and they might as well re-brand this a Christmas theme park.

Jamie squinted over her shoulder at the front doors. Nothing yet. The only movement was the occasional sway from a bored doorman. He muttered something and turned up the heating in her car – which made the windows mist up again. Next time he did that she was going to slam his hand in the glove box.

It was odd, to say the absolute sodding least, sitting in silence with the famous Scottish terrier on her arm. Sam wished that she'd invested in a carry cage or something for him to keep his paws and feet from marking the interior of her car. He was half an inch from chewing the seatbelt, lost in thought. The least Malcolm could have done was have him washed and clipped first. In fact, this was probably the longest stretch of time she'd spent with Jamie. Normally he bustled into a room, insulted everything with a pulse, then left in a cloud of smoke. He was effectively an ill-tempered stun grenade.

This was different.

This was _actual_ Jamie and Sam didn't know what to make of it. Or what to say. The only silence she experienced with Malcolm was when he slipped into a coma. Weird. She wondered what _they_ spent their time chatting about or if they simply practised insults on each other.

Sam frowned at herself. Why was she even curious about that?

“Oy, darlin'... We're supposed to be watching the house of Christmas cheer,” Jamie pointed out, as he rifled through her glove box – bored and certainly not watching the house.

She did her absolute best not to slam it closed on him.

Besides, at the moment there was more going on with her hibernating phone. She'd been staring at it for longer than she'd care to admit. Things were quieter at work with the entire political elite on trial. It was as if everyone was too paranoid to use their phones. With good cause. There was practically a phone hacking app doing the rounds. She wondered if they'd ever get bored of reading everyone's mindless drivel from their phones... Evidently no one had been brave enough to tap Malcolm's phone. You might as well offer yourself up as lion fodder in a really fucking scary petting zoo.

“Classic fucking Stockholm this is,” Jamie added, rolling his eyes at the frankly common sight of Sam and her phone. He knew somebody else with a mobile dependency. “Though I can't quite tell which of you did the abducting. You might be the sort of girl that keeps a set of hand cuffs. How elaborate is this little Bejerot fantasy of yours? Do you perch on his desk while he massacres ministers – fix him a cup of tea and wash the blood out of his jacket?”

“Fuck off, Jamie.”

“Yeah. That's definitely some Malcolm rubbing off on you there. Did you bring any biscuits?”

“I'm not a bakery.”

“Oh come on... It's a stake out.”

“You and I are simply out for a drive,” It was no use. Malcolm was probably stalking his own prey. “If I'd brought snacks it'd harm our defence. Don't ever call it a stake out again. We're not on some cheap crime show...”

Jamie grumbled something and flipped open his phone.

  
  


_No bloody biscuits. The fuck?_

_Jamie_

  
  


“Who are you txting?” Sam flinched at the sudden blue glow in the car. It was ruining their cover and if she was entirely honest, it made Jamie look like a demon. A small Scottish pixie.

“The great god _Set_ – to see if he can do something about the sodding weather.” His phone buzzed.

  
  


_I have a date with a twenty-five year old bottle of scotch. Bugger off._

_Malc_

  
  


Jamie swore and hit the phone against the car a few times.

Sam hoped that he broke it. “Don't invoke any ancient gods,” she begged. “It's bound to go badly with manners like yours.”

  
  


_Why am I babysitting him? Are you breaking into his office?_

_XS_

  
  


“I happen to be on good terms with the gods, thank you very much,” Jamie insisted. “I produce a blood offering every week to keep them onside. Where do you think all those nosey hacks end up?”

  
  


_Can't talk. Burgling._

_XM_

  
  


“Who are _you_ txting?” Jamie threw her question straight back at her.

“No one.”

“That's who I'm txting,” Jamie agreed. They locked eyes in disdain before Jamie tapped her on the shoulder and nodded at the window. “That the cunt we're waiting for?”

“Blimey!” Sam fumbled for her phone, opening the camera to start filming. “How does Malcolm know these things?”

No one really wanted to know the answer to that one.

“Got a Twix?”

“Jamie, get _out_ of my glove box before you find something you'll regret.” Like his own severed fucking hand.

*~*~*

The great lord Tucker collapsed behind his desk with a bottle of scotch and pile of freshly pilfered paperwork.

“Not so fucking smug now – are you?” he asked no one in particular, cracking his knuckles in victory. There was nothing wrong with a bit of casual blackmail among friends. “The waters below London are black. Black as fucking space. Not some galaxy-dense supercluster. No. Dense as the fucking voids where cosmic dust collects.”

If he was perfectly honest with his malicious side, half this encyclopaedia of woe would have been enough to collapse every reputation on the inquiry but he was a firm believer in finishing a job. If you're gonna do it – do it properly. Malcolm wasn't Gandolf the vague, he was the whole flock of convenient eagles. _Deus ex machina Tucker._ He'd never been fucked but he spent a great deal of time fucking.

A few hours later, Malcolm learned the hard way that his citrus dependency kept his alcoholism at bay. Unable to eat any of the _emoti_ -rins, he'd polished off half a bottle of scotch in their wake – more than enough to unravel him.

“Jesus – fuck...” his vision blurred and all at once Malcolm realised he was in trouble. He slumped in his chair, draped oddly over it with his feet up on the desk.

The light switch was all the way over beside the door. Defeated, Malcolm picked up yesterday's newspaper and placed it over his head to get rid of the light. Blissful darkness enveloped him. He sighed happily and hoped this wore off in the few hours he had before morning.

At least he'd chosen the privacy of his office and not the _local_ like a certain DoSAC minister that had a date with the gallows tomorrow. He'd booked ahead to make sure there was a spot. Hopefully Ollie, the mostly useless twat, would sheppard his minister there on time. There was nothing he like more than to wake up to a good public execution.

*~*~*

 _That's not right,_ Sam thought, when she saw a light under her boss's door. Malcolm was on some kind of heist

Her her first thought was that Julius had made good on his threat and crept in. She steeled herself for a the bald wars and quietly opened it, intent on catching him. If nothing else, she was curious to know what he was after.

*~*~*

Malcolm didn't hear the office door creak open. One of his hands was still clutching a pen he was entirely unable to use. Indeed, keeping his breath steady and balance on the chair was consuming most of his available brain energy. He was going to make a note that drinking and blackmail don't mix as well as they used to.

*~*~*

Sam found what she presumed was her boss. She huffed at the items on his desk. Eventually she won an argument with her better judgement and stalked over to him. The click of her heels on the floor made him stir. Not that it was to much effect, considering his face was hidden under the paper.

“Did you really make out with Jamie at the Christmas party?” Malcolm asked, entirely out of the blue and muffled by the cheap, poorly edited print. “Because I've got some pretty weird flashes going on in my mind that I can't clear away with two pints of gin.”

Well, there it was. Absolute proof that the rumours had made it to his desk, probably courtesy of the smug bastard himself. _Leaky little..._ Regardless, Sam reached over Malcolm's desk and picked up the half-empty bottle, examining it.

“You're drinking scotch, not gin,” she corrected boredly.

“Unacceptable...” he muttered through his paper.

Sam lofted her eyebrow, still holding the bottle. There was no way she was going to let him keep it. Instead, she untwisted the lid and took a swig. It'd been a long night. “What - the scotch or Jamie?” She wasn't given a reply.

_She sighed._ Without a word, Sam reached forward and tugged the newspaper off his face. There he was and by gods, he was paralytic. Honestly, she couldn't help herself. She reached out with her free hand, curling her fingers around the back of his chair for support as she leaned down, catching Malcolm entirely off guard with a sneaky brush of lips.

It was drunken. Chaste and more than required to prove a point.

Malcolm's feet slid off the desk and hit the ground with a loud _clunk_ in surprise. The moment he pressed up toward her, Sam slipped away.

“There,” she announced. “Now you're even.” Sam held up the bottle of scotch, waving it in front of his face so that he'd know she was taking that with her. “Night.”

“...night...” he managed to mutter, long after she'd left the room. He'd be so fucking annoyed at his brain if he forgot this in a haze of alcohol.


	7. Chapter 7

Malcolm didn't fucking forget.

He'd forgotten a lot of things from last night; the location of his jacket, a worrying fifteen calls made to Julius, a regrettable Ebay order – even some pretty scary blocks of time which had been cleaved out of the universe – but not that. Never that. His brain had snapped into in high definition recording for two minutes and now he was stuck on weekend replays with 90's love ballads playing in the background. _What a fucking disaster._

And how the _fuck_ did he end up with four empty bottles of Fanta on the floor of his office stacked in a pyramid? Malcolm stared at the offending vessels of soft drink with red eyes before realising that _he'd_ ended up on the floor as well, spread over the carpet like political road kill. All that was missing was a chalk outline. The whole scenario hurt his dignity more than the solid ground digging into his hip. _He was getting too old for this shit._

“Fuck me... Fuck me... Fuck me...” The last one ended up with Malcolm's head resting on the carpet for a few moments of blissful relief.

A vision in hideous cyan blundered into his office without knocking.

“Oh god!” Terry bent oddly to make sure the corpse on the ground was indeed the fearsome Tucker. Her oversized beaded necklace slapped him in the face like an unwanted cock. “Where'd they dig you up from because I don't think they quite finished the job...”

“Terry. If you're my subconscious punishing me you needn't bother. There's nothing left to bollock. My skull is bleeding through my eyes. HBO's on the other line asking for the rights.”

“Honestly Malcolm,” Terry unwisely moved closer and started to peel the terrifying Director of Communication from the cheap carpet. “Did someone try to wash your clothes with you still in them?” She tried to flatten out some of the creases in his shirt but it was a mangled disaster.

Malcolm made some pretty distressed sounds as his joints realigned and he found himself sitting up wondering why Terry was mothering him. Jesus. He must be dying.

“If you like I can have an ironing board sent over from DoSAC,” she continued. “We have three now that everyone's ironing their resumes in light of the approaching apocalypse.”

He tried to laugh.

“Don't do that,” she advised. “Shall I fetch your P.A.?”

Malcolm lifted his hands up to stop Terry. “No – no. Sam's busy.” Probably. Then his face folded in a frown. “Why are you even here?”

“I've come to scrape Dan Miller off the wall. You had him nailed to it early this morning.”

Oh Christ. He'd missed the show.

“How's he looking?”

“A head shorter.”

“Incompetent, over-zealous revolutionaries. I said take his hands not his fucking head. He needs that for his interview this afternoon. It's not really a message of support if it's mounted on a spike.”

*~*~*

At some point, Jamie appeared. An apparition from hell. He and Malcolm were locked in a death stare after debating the fine print of who got to murder whom. Vultures fighting for scraps had more manners and frankly, Sam was sick of hearing them shout elaborate expletive nonsense this early in the morning. Not to mention that despite her best efforts, Tucker looked as though he'd had a slight sky-diving accident.

“Oh my god –“ she pushed her chair out from her desk and stalked over to them. “I don't have time for your homo-erotic drama right now.” Sam checked her watch. “Play amongst yourselves, I have to go. _Don't_ set off any sustained gunfire in the press hall while I'm gone. Please. I'm too busy to mop up after you.”

“Hey – that's _my_ line.” Tucker shouted after her, still marred from his athletic discussion.

Sam huffed and vanished.

“Look,” Tucker finally turned on Jamie, who was tearing the soul out of a jam doughnut. “If you've just come to gloat about last night-”

“Come on – who _else_ brings you presents like those photos?” Jamie gloated. He leaned in against Malcolm's shoulder depositing a snow storm of icing sugar. “Aren't you supposed to be giving a sustained series of lies at _that_ committee hearing your P.A. is sashaying off to?”

“Fucking pissed headless ministers at a rave,” Malcolm muttered, turning in an awkward little circle to vent his frustration. That translated to, _'yes goddamit'_.

“I'm sensing some fucking intense tension – like Indiana Jones with a huge fuck-off boulder bearing down. Have you been doing unspeakable things with your secretary, director?”

Tucker turned on the younger man, bearing over him in a fucking terrifying shadow. “Keep your cock where it belongs or I'll have you flayed alive and add Hannibal Lecture to your Facebook friends. I hear he's rather fond of tiny ball sacks.”

“You spend too much time thinking about my ball sacks.”

Jamie only _just_ escaped Tucker's office. He heard a mandarin hit the door behind him – thrown with enough force to take out small countries.

A moment later Tucker exploded out of the office, slamming the same door. “Fucking committee hearing,” he growled, obviously having forgotten about it again. Maybe he just didn't want to go.

Jamie gave him a parting salute before polishing off his breakfast. “Break a fuckin' leg.”

*~*~*

Sam was in the car outside, waiting for him. The cab driver was letting the meter tick over into some kind of infinite pit of gold.

“We're late,” Sam said, as he slid into the back seat with her, still looking like an extra in a disaster film. He accepted the folder, phone and tie that she handed him in quick succession.

“Why have they called me back? I thought panel was closed for questions.”

“Nicola Murray, your favourite haemorrhage, had another verbal accident last night prompting them to re-open the inquiry for further questions.”

“How is it that she's _still_ ruining my day? Usually when I arrange someone's execution they stay dead.”

Sam offered him a patient smile. “I wouldn't worry. It's not so much you they want to speak to but me.”

All the remaining colour in Malcolm's face drained away. He looked like a staved vampire wandering the world of the living in search of souls. That's how he faced the cameras a short time later, staring into their empty lenses, tearing into people's living rooms. Malcolm felt the soft weight of a small hand on his arm and realised that Sam was holding him. Holding him back from murder, probably.

*~*~*

Malcolm took his turn sitting in the uncomfortable chairs stacked behind the speakers while Sam was sworn in. It was imperative he stay quiet so she'd given him her folder and phone to look after. Mostly it was so he'd have something to do with his hands that didn't involve strangling the other members of the audience.

Sam fought back a grin when she noticed the petrified face of the panellist at the heart of Malcolm's latest revenge plot. Obviously the news story that was due to break any time now was going to be the end of his career. Two down. Two to go. She was starting to have faith that they could actually pull this off. She'd seen the master perform fucking miracles before but this was a privilege.

“ _For the record, can you state your name and position?”_

Sam remained a vision of courtesy. “Samantha Cassidy, Personal Assistant to Malcolm Tucker.”

“ _And this role that you play for the Director of Communications, is it – would you say, varied?”_

“That's fair.”

“ _Do these 'varied' tasks include the acquisition of data that Mr Tucker might use in his day-to-day activities?”_

Malcolm knew better than to show it but his pulse lifted. He clutched the folders she'd given him tight. Sam remained a vision of infinite calm.

“If you mean, 'do I perform research for his official duties' then _yes_. Of course. That is the role of all personal assistants.”

One of the panellists looked sideways at her. _“I do very much hope that was not out of turn, Ms Cassidy.”_

Innocence. Pure as the driven snow. “Of course not.”

It went on like this for almost as long as they'd questioned Malcolm the first time around. They were trying to get to him via Sam – as though she were the easier target to drag information out of. They couldn't be more wrong of course. Sam's brother was a lawyer and she'd helped him study through many of his exams. Her knowledge of these things was more than cursory. Actually, Malcolm was starting to panic at how good a liar she actually was. Certainly better than him.

That's when he caught himself resting _her_ pen against his lips. He pulled his hands back and frowned. _Fuck._ He had to stop thinking about last night.

*~*~*

“See...?”

Another corner of Time fell away before Malcolm realised that his P.A. was addressing him. “What...?”

Sam sighed. They were strolling over Westminster Bridge – thundering clouds building behind parliament and the scent of wet pavement drowning out petrol fumes from the boats below. A moment of sun caught the grandiose building. She couldn't help lofting her eyebrow at the beastly thing. “See – that wasn't so bad.”

“It was _horrible_.” Malcolm muttered in reply, still clutching her clipboard under his folded arm.

“You didn't even have to speak,” Sam protested, dragging her gaze away from the building and back to the brooding Director of Communications. “Honestly, if you're going to be in this mood all day...”

He looked over at her, his steely eyes peering from overbearing eyebrows. “They were trying to use you against me.”

“More fool them.”

“Maybe so but this won't be the last time they try.”

Sam paused, guiding them both to the edge of the bridge. “They'll never get anything out of me.”

“It's too dangerous. They're bound to find something eventually.”

This time, Sam took his arm again, if only to make sure that he was looking at her and not the storm. “They _won't_.” People frequently saw the great Tucker in a frightening mood but it was rare to see that fear reflected in his eyes. “You listen to me,” Sam continued, “we stick to the plan. There's only two of them left and then it's over. Nobody's going to fun a second hearing, not with public interest waning and the budget due for review. This game has a timer on it and we're so close. Now – what's the plan?”


	8. Chapter 8

A parcel rested in the middle of Malcolm's desk.

“The fuck is this?” He pointed at it as though it were some vile, poisonous insect. The room was empty and his audience was a laughing mandarin so he scowled and prodded the delivery with one of his uncommonly long fingers. Fearing it was nuclear waste or dismembered babies, he opened it at one corner, peering cautiously inside. Of course that was incredibly awkward and so he ended up nose to nose with the wrappings of his parcel. Finally he realised what was inside. _That's right. Heavy drinking. Phone. Ebay._

“Malcolm?”

Tucker pulled back so fast the parcel fell off the desk along with half his paperwork. He blushed profusely, hair a mess, looking panicked. He shoved the parcel under his desk out of sight with his feet.

“N-nothing...” he replied, alarmed.

Sam eyed a mandarin rolling towards her on the floor. She bent down, retrieved it and held the thing up with a heavily arched eyebrow. “Well, you've got _nothing_ on in five minutes.”

“Shit. The Prime Minister.”

“The Prime Minister,” she confirmed. “And he looks more guilty than you.”

“Well he should,” Malcolm huffed. He stood up and swiped his jacket off his chair, sliding it onto his stick-insect body. “I'm a miracle worker not Doctor Fucking Who. I don't know how he thinks we're going to smooth this one over.”

Sam gave him a patient look, dusting his shoulders off when he came close enough. “You've still got four and a half minutes to formulate a plan.”

“That's ages.”

“And your last meeting of the day -” Sam didn't mean to but her voice dropped slightly as they paced along the innards of Parliament, “-is that still...?”

Malcolm nodded once.

“Now remember, murdering is considered a crime so if you're gonna do it, _don't do it on camera_.”

This time Malcolm smirked. “Yes, ma'am.”

Sam hit him sharply with her folder. “I mean it.”

Nobody around them blinked.

*~*~*

Whatever bits were left of the Prime Minister appeared on the evening news, plugging a carefully selected festive charity event yanked from mid-air at the last moment.

“Malcolm – that wasn't funny.”

There he was, Julius Caesar lurking by the tea tray, head reflecting the eco-friendly spotlights making him look a bit like an exoplanet in the waning warm of a distant star. Malcolm was in a cheery mood and diverted from his kill-path to inspect the biscuit selection. “It was hilarious, I promise.”

“Jesus fucking Christ...” Poor Julius was sweating out a Roman.

“You realise that's another way of shouting 'masturbation' to the room, right?” Malcolm stuck a biscuit between his teeth, twiddled his hefty eyebrows and left Julius to his ruined world. The Prime Minister in bits always sent him into a spin.

He was in such a good mood today. It wasn't his birthday or a major calendar holiday but _definitely_ a Hallmark event. He was only slightly dampened by Ollie tripping over his own feet.

“Ollie, the travelling otter,” Malcolm paused momentarily, not sure if this was social or mortal.

Ollie leaned in, clutching his laptop bag to his chest like body armour. “You're up shit creek,” he half-breathed, half-whispered.

“I know. It's on the telly and-”

“No. No. No. Listen. One of the panellists...”

“Two down, two to go.”

“Maybe not.”

Malcolm looked put out. “What do you mean, there's a sword half way through his chest.”

“Not that one.”

“The – quiet one? The ex-teacher?”

Ollie nodded slowly, backing Tucker towards a quieter, more shadowy part of the hallway where they wouldn't be overheard. “You've been leavin' him 'til last.”

“Yeah,” Malcolm was rather concerned by the confined place he found himself in. “You get rid of the most dangerous things first – don't give them time to plot.”

“Malcolm, you missed something.”

“He's a _teacher_ not-”

“Look at his brother. Quietly.”

*~*~*

Nobody could ever accuse Tucker of keeping his hands clean. He was more than prepared to get his paws covered in muck. Most of his equals had their P.A.'s run the file rooms but honestly, Sam had enough dirt under her nails on his account. This time he could manage on his -

“Sam. _Sam_?”

Sam dropped a box of files in fright, one hand on her chest – the other on the wall of filing cabinets. He'd scared the living hell out of her. His victims were right, he could materialise out of thin air.

“The fuck you doing down here?” Malcolm continued, quite unable to believe his eyes. It was almost midnight and Sam was here, calm as you like as if she was on a fucking coffee run. Did she sleep? Maybe he'd gone and hired a goddamn android or clone. Two Sams. _Interesting._ No. Fuck, Malcolm.

“You okay?” Sam dipped her head, eyeing her boss. He looked – odd. “Did one of those cabinets hit you in the face?”

Well honestly, that's probably what he needed. “What are you doing down here?” He managed to produce a perfectly sensible question.

“What are _you_ doing down here?” she countered.

“I asked first.”

“That was your answer,” she clarified.

“Oh...” So she knew as well. Ollie must have given her a heads up as well, sly fucker. “Anything yet?”

She shook her head. “No but I'm not leaving until I know what Ollie's on about. It'd be so much easier if he told us. Something's got him spooked. He won't say a word. Something scarier than you.”

“Obviously we're in the blast radius of a nuclear explosion,” Malcolm huffed and went back to his drawer until Sam stopped him.

“I've done those. Try over there,” she pointed behind them. She knelt down, collecting everything she'd dropped.

He did as he was told, turning to the alarming forest of paperwork. It would really help if they'd been given a hint. 'Brother' was a very broad category and so far, the sibling was as just as dreary.

“That delivery. From Amazon.” Sam spoke up, now knee deep in files. They'd been at it for hours.

“Ebay,” he corrected.

“Amazon.” He was wrong. “I put it in your bottom drawer. Thought it for the best. All things considered.”

This time Tucker's head did impact the cabinets. It was loud, echoing through the room in the bowels of the records building. She knew. This day wasn't going to get any better any time soon. “I think it happened accidentally,” he tried to explain. “The – Gin.”

“Scotch.”

“Scotch. Just so you know, your bank statement says you ordered two of them. You don't – ah – happen to know where the other one went, do you?” It could be important. She might have to shed blood to protect his dignity.

Malcolm closed his eyes, trying to think – then...

“Oh _fucking_ fuckity _fuck_.” That explained so much.

Sam bit her lip. “I take it a few details are wafting back?”

“All hail fucking Caesar.”

Sam had to cover her mouth with her hand this time. _Oh shit_. Julius.

“Stop that. Stop – stop laughing.”

Poor Sam. She couldn't.

“If you're gonna do that – just _go_...” he muttered. Was she crying? Bloody hell. Her make-up was going to run and it'd be his fault and some press hack would get a snap of it and - “Seriously. It's not that funny.”

Sam pulled herself together long enough to dead-pan. “It's fucking hilarious.”

“Well – stop laughing,” he pleaded. “Or I'm going to hit you with this file.”

“That's my line,” she complained. “Wait on.” Sam reached for the file, snatching it out of his claws. She opened it and started reading intently.

“Oh _no_...” Malcolm collapsed against the filing cabinet and slid to the ground with the rest of the debris. “I forgot about the meeting.”

“Nevermind. We can have it here, if you like.”

“What, on the cheap carpet of the records room? No biscuits? No thanks.”

Sam wiped the corners of her eyes as she flipped through the file. She'd process her emotions later – right now there were arses to save. “Oh here we go. Simon Weir... PHD, Masters in Commerce – worked for P&T Gas Co ten years...” she was glazing over everything they already knew. “Parents deceased. Two elder sisters, abroad working for Doctors Without Borders and one brother, currently employed in -”

She fell silent.

Malcolm shifted, extracting himself from the towers of dismembered folders. “Sam?”

Sam lifted her gaze very slowly to his.

“This is no time for a dramatic silence.”

It was serious. Sam was lost for words.

“Malc...” she whispered, a moment of frailty brushing between them. “We're fucked.”


	9. Chapter 9

“Precisely how long are you borrowing that stolen file for?” Malcolm asked, idly resigned to a well-loved chair in front of the fire.

If he was perfectly honest it was a pitiful attempt at a fire – too small, fake stone edging and chemically engineered, unidentifiable black lumps impersonating coal as though it were going out of style like _Unob-fucking-tainium_. Still, his office didn't have one, which seemed like a perfectly reasonable excuse to relocate their meeting to Sam's house. Bonus, she'd produced tea and biscuits.

Sam was over by her desk at the edge of the living room, photocopying under the lamp-light. Who even kept an industrial photocopier in their house? Fucking Sam. She probably had a small slave workforce under the floorboards and a larder stocked with bits of massacred ministers.

He got a bit of a chuckle out of that.

“Be serious,” Sam scorned him quietly. “What are we going to do about this?” She waved part of the folder at him.

Malcolm had been avoiding the answer all morning. He glanced over to the bank of windows walling in one side of her house. Who willingly lived in a fish tank? The sun would come up soon. Maybe he didn't have many days left after all.

“If Weir uses this he's admitting a leak himself – throwing his own flesh and blood into the fire with us.” He finally said.

“You don't think he'll risk revealing his brother as the leak inside the records office?”

He shrugged. “This wasn't an accident. It's not an impulsive moment in the mind of a clerk grasping for a second in the light.”

She put the last of the file down and walked toward her boss. She stopped at a nearby couch, resting her hands on the rough fabric. “You've been framed.”

Malcolm nodded. “I – recognise another name in the file,” he admitted. “Did you happen to see who Simon's father was?” He waited for Sam to catch up with him. When dread registered in her eyes, he continued. “Politics was a bit of a gift for Weir Senior. His particular talents very nearly brought down a rising star. A young, foolish MP with more balls than sense.”

Sam already knew that Malcolm was talking about their PM. Malcolm was always saving him, it had become his hobby. This was where it all started – the famous Tucker takedown that had earned him the fearful respect of Jamie, back when he was a cheap hack. “That wasn't your fault...”

“It was _exactly_ my fault,” he replied sternly. Malcolm was tired and angry. Mostly at himself. “When you unravel the life of another human being you take credit for the fall and the mess that comes after. The wonderful swan song of Tickel is poetic justice as far as Weir is concerned. He wants the world to see my blood stained hands. The skeletons are coming out of the ground, Sam, they're coming through the walls.”

And by the depths of hell, she could see the fear in his eyes. He was looking at her because he knew where this was leading. Where it had to finish. The truth was coming and there was nothing he could do to stop it. Jesus, is this what regret felt like?

“No.” Sam navigated her close-knit living room and stopped in front of the fire. “We're not giving up that easy.”

“Sam...”

“Do you remember the first thing you said to me?”

“I told you to, 'fuck off'.”

“You thought I was one of the hacks snuck into your office, pilfering state secrets.”

A reasonable assumption at the time. Technically he hadn't hired a P.A. and generally speaking there wasn't an abundance of women loitering in his office. Truanting tabloid reporter was right up there with assassin for things you could find in Tucker's office. “You'd brought coffee and biscuits.”

“Really wish I hadn't,” she joked lightly. “I set a precedent for baked goods.”

At least he smiled.

“Why'd you fucking stay with a short-tempered cunt like me – Sam?” His question was quite serious, unlike most of his curse-laden banter. “The job doesn't pay well. It turns you into a fucking zombie in the middle of a Michael Bay film where the apocalypse lasts three hours past its natural run time. The buildings are falling into the sea and the ice sheets have gone and fucking evaporated into a comet. Bruce Willis is dead and Goldblum's had his head torn off by a raptor.”

That was a relatively accurate depiction of political life. Sam wasn't sure that she needed to stroke his ego – it'd be like sharpening the fangs on a lion and nobody needs one of those running about. “You're not boring.”

“I'm not _boring_? Jesus. I'll put that on my epitaph then. Carve it in fucking stone. Here lies Malcolm Tucker. He wasn't a boring fuck.”

“I always imagined it'd be an honour roll of murdered MPs.”

He wasn't surprised that Sam had fantasied about his death. This time he throws his head back in a proper laugh. The glow from the fire was warm against his skin. It made him ever so slightly less vampiric. “Is that a list you're keeping?”

“Confirmed kills only. Anything you do in your free time is your business.”

Gods he fucking loved her. “What's that?” He quickly distracted her by pointing to a notebook left on the coffee table. He made a grabby-hands gestures at her until she fetched it for him. “Is that the Ollie thing?”

“I don't know where his loyalty comes from or what sort of Dom/Sub relationship you've fostered but he came through for you.”

Malcolm flipped through it, grinning. “Oh he's a useful little pawn.”

“You've got to watch out for those.”

“By the time Ollie limps his way to the end of the board I'll be on some fucking sand-infested island resort with a bottle of gin and a convenient lemon tree sprouting out of the warm sea.”

“Be. Careful.” Sam mouthed at him. He was too giddy for his own good.

She retired to her photocopier and Tucker eventually nodded off in the chair, diary slipping from his hand, surrounded by a debris of biscuit crumbs.

*~*~*

Dilemma.

It was near on six and Sam's boss was curled into one of her chairs like some enormous Serengeti cat. In all the years he'd parked in her living room, he was _always_ awake in time. It's not like she could leave him there. If she was late, so was he. Besides, what the hell would Patrick make of it? Probably give him a decent heart attack to find a Funnelweb spider prodding the coffee machine.

“Malcolm...” she tried. Apart from the crackle of a near-dead fire, there was no sign of life. If people thought that he was scary awake, they should try his sleeping corpse.

Sam sighed and set her bag down before wandering over to the coffee machine. She set about making what was admittedly a dreadful cup of coffee. Sam was a tea person with woeful barista skills. Eventually she produced a cup lined with a black substance which she wafted under Malcolm's sleeping nose.

“ _S'shitcoffee wha...?”_ he mumbled, stirring.

Sam pulled back as he startled out of sleep. The first thing he saw was her and that startled him afresh.

“Time is it?” Malcolm asked, eyeing the coffee suspiciously.

She made him take the scorching cup. “After six.” Sam turned as he unleashed a hail of abuse directed at the sun's position in the sky and the appalling beverage. “I have to go – have an errand to run,” she held up the stolen file that needed urgent returning to the records office. “Lock up when you leave.” Sam deliberately put the keys on the table while he was watching. He knew the drill.

Then she was gone. Malcolm was left to his coffee and the purring of Sam's cat who had taken up residence on the mat at his feet. “What are you so fucking happy about?” Tucker asked it. All he got in reply was an agitated tail flick.

The Abyssinian snow-ball got under his feet until he relented and fed it some biscuits. Malcolm used the spare bathroom, showering before changing into a freshly dry-cleaned suit still hanging behind the door which Sam had left here instead of bringing it into the office. It was almost like he lived here.

Finally, he scooped the keys up from the table and negotiated his way out the door, skilfully navigating the cat. One of Sam's neighbours was leaving too and waved pleasantly at him. Despite his natural tendency for murder, he waved back and wondered what the actual fuck had happened to his life.

*~*~*

“Are you suspending yourself from the trusses at night now?” Jamie blinked slowly at Malcolm's state. He'd always held a firm belief that Malcolm slept upside down in his office like a bat. When Tucker glanced up with a violent stare from tired eyes, Jamie worked it out. “You've gotta stop squatting on your P.A.'s couch. You know exactly how that fucking looks.”

“It can look however it likes,” Tucker snapped.

“Smug bastard. You are a PR nightmare,” Jamie added, strutting around Malcolm's office. “If the press weren't terrified of waking up in a pit of fire they'd have you all over page 2.”

“What?” That earned a smirk. “Like a -”

Jamie cut him short. “Yeah – with all your cock-ups on show. Great big, full colour, double page spread.”

“Fuck off, Jamie. There's plenty of sport outside for you to blunt your teeth on. I'm already fucked. Too many cocks you know – spoils the experience of dying.”

Jamie reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded bit of paper, holding it between two fingers as if he were making a bid for freedom. “You better fuckin' thank me.”

Malcolm frowned and took it. “Sometimes you scare me, you mad, Scottish fuck.”

“I'm your bloody genetically modified protege. Got all the best bits – except the eyebrows.” Jamie waited while Malcolm laughed. “Seriously, how is _this_ resurrecting itself? Don't we have a policy of cementing the dead in the London Underground? You and I signed a pact with the devil over this. I lost so much blood I had to murder half the electorate.”

“Try not to create any more frown lines in your forehead. They're after me, not you.”

“Maybe but they're gonna end up with Sam.”

The two men fell silent.

_The press were going to end up with Sam._

*~*~*

“Oh my god...” Sam stopped when she saw him sauntering down the hallway toward her. He had a weird fucking way of walking – like he expected a squabble of press in tow. It was either that or part of his soul had been torn out on his way out of hell. “Jamie...”

“We're goin' the other way,” he said, taking her arm and spinning Malcolm's P.A. around in a flourish of drama. He held her tighter when she started to protest. “Trust me on this one. The front door is not a place you want to go.”

They exited the records office by a fire escape. Straight onto the street, they crossed and vanished into a rubbish bit of park surviving between pavement and skyscraper. “What are you doing here?” Sam snapped at him.

“Rescuing you,” Jamie replied.

This time, she managed to fight her way out of his grip. “No. You're not. What was at the front doors?”

“One of the best long-lens photographers I've ever come across.”

Sam was starting to understand. It didn't matter if he was in the employ of the paper or Weir. “So what?” she replied, her voice lowered to a whisper. “I'm always in the records office – like every other minion of parliament. What of it?”

“Sam...”

“Don't call me, 'Sam',” she protested.

“Blimey, you're worse than he is.”

“You call my boss, 'Sam'.”

“I – the fuck?” How did she get him so lost in a language he was supposed to be a master of? “Listen. Stop being so difficult. I'm doin' yer a favour, darlin'. The last thing you need right now is your face in the paper. Being famous isn' brilliant.”

“Weir's got nothing,” Sam insisted. “Unless you know something I don't. You do. Jamie!”

“I'm helping. That's all you need to concern yourself with.”

“Forgive me but it's a bit like being helped down a dark alley by Jack the Ripper.”

*~*~*

“How long have you been wearing glasses?”

Tucker was nose deep in a newspaper, his heavy, black-framed glasses gradually making their way down his nose. With his hair slicked back, shirt sleeves rolled to his elbows and tie undone he was every bit the dream Sam wasn't supposed to have. Too bad the vision was wasted on Julius.

“How long have you been in my office?” Tucker snipped back, looking up, then added, “Is your head chiselled out of marble, or is that your normal fucking head?”

“It's my normal fucking head.” Julius closed the door. “Malcolm, we need to talk!”

“You're Head of Blue-Sodding-Skies-Think-Fuck, all you do is talk. You talk so much it evaporates shit off the pavement and rains it down over the rest of us like the biggest plague-let-down since _frogs_. I mean, nobody likes Frogs but their superfluous presence isn't the end of the world unless you're a vegetarian.”

Julius frowned. Shook his head. Opened his mouth to speak but Malcolm's P.A. burst in.

“Stop getting your pets to fetch me! I'm not a Frisbee.” Sam froze when she saw Malcolm. Like Netflix with bad wifi, everything was starting to stutter.

“What's wrong?” Tucker asked her, adjusting his glasses.

“Absolutely nothing.” _Fuck_.

“Do you speak entirely in retracted whispers? It's like policy at a séance.”

“Your car is here.”

As Tucker strolled past, he narrowed his eyes at Sam. She shrugged innocently.

“Get rid of _that_...” Malcolm breathed, pointing at Julius.


	10. Chapter 10

Malcolm inhabited the hire car. Brooding. Filling every crack of it with his noxious mood. His hands were knit together, fingertips pressing hard enough to make his digits white as ash. His breathing came as strangled growls reverberating against the air conditioning like a distant summer storm caressing a mountain range. _Or the brimstone above a volcano._

Something annoying knocked on his window.

“Fuck _off!_ ” His snarl ricochetted off the glass.

It knocked again.

Tucker lowered the window and repeated the sentiment.

“Come on, Malcolm. I ran five blocks. There's ice and all kinds of Christmas shit about.” Ollie was raining sweat from his limp locks. Some of it sprayed onto Malcolm's face making his skin twitch in fury. Eventually, with a little more begging in the face of abuse, Tucker unlocked the door. Ollie cautiously shuffled into the back seat next to the hostile civil servant.

“How are things at the office of Deliberately Offensive Shites and Cunts?”

Ollie had developed another nervous disorder and there mere mention of his workplace. Maybe Malcolm was right – before this was all over he'd be an emaciated corpse resurrected for festive events. “To be honest, Miller's a bit of a -”

“Twat. Several amino acids short of having an actual brain cell. I know. That's why he was picked for the job in the first place. He's fucking easy to blindfold and shift about, looks decent on camera – he'll say _anything_ if you put it on a prompt card. He's a fucking cardboard cut-out complete with corrugated backing and permanent marker aftershave. Dan Miller is smoked salmon on a silver platter.”

Ollie nodded. “Don't get me wrong, Nicola Murray was mental as a rabies-infested-squirrel but at least she came up with her own ways of getting into a mess. Dan sits in the meeting room with a vacant expression. It's like we've hired one of those village people from that horror movie – the one where they've all been replaced by alien downloads. That's what we've got. A Dan Miller alien droid.”

Malcolm grinned at Ollie's sigh. He understood that it was poor form to take joy in the suffering of others but he did it anyway.

“Why are we in the hire car?” Ollie asked. “Are we going somewhere?” It started to snow outside. One of those passing clouds that had chased him down the street earlier must have finally caught up.

“Julius is in my office.”

Ollie – frowned. Narrowed his eyes. “Wait so – we're banished to the car because you didn't know how to kick Julius out of your office?” It would have been funny if Malcolm wasn't so sombre about it. “I thought Julius was one of your specialities – something you skewered for weekend BBQ's with your hack friends?”

“That is a _rumour_. I don't have friends.”

“Jamie...”

“Is there a point to you being here or are you only in it for the heater? Because that can be taken away like _that_.” Tucker snapped his fingers savagely. There was no proof that Malcolm was a living creature – he might not need warmth. Ollie took him seriously and rustled through his satchel for paperwork.

“Well, _my_ hack friend,” Ollie wasn't afraid to admit he had human contact, “who only takes me out to coffee to extract state secrets, inadvertently let slip a few things about your current prey, Simon Weir.”

That perked Malcolm up a bit.

“He's been getting all cosy up at _The Times._ It seems,” Ollie continued, “that there's a story brewing in the press – a real _exposé_ into the dark side of British politics with your face as the centrepiece.”

“Normally I'd be flattered but I'm sensing a downside.”

Ollie nodded. “Weir's going to nail you to the wall on this one – not just for Tickel's medical records – which we knew was coming but several other damaging spills in the last twenty years. They'll have enough detail to make the charges stick. He's squealing like a kitten. There's piss all over the papers and it's yours.”

If Malcolm had looked unhappy before then this was apocalyptic. The safety glass windows were threatening to crack under his glare. There was something vulnerable about those eyes as they watched the snow fall with frightening intensity. For the first time, Malcolm Tucker knew that he was in too deep – that events had sailed over his head and spinning about, outside his control and he fucking resented those lazy cunts at the press office. Why'd they pick now to do some leg work and not with all the bent politicians he'd helped bury for the good of the country...

“Malcolm – are you all right?”

“Get out of my fucking car.” The delivery was flat. Malcolm Tucker was not okay.

“Right... _though technically it's a government car._ ” Ollie replied quietly, leaving the information he'd gathered on the seat next to Tucker as he stepped into the light snow.

Instead of doing the sensible thing and returning to DoSAC, Ollie vanished straight into the building opposite and braved the halls of the dead. He paused in front of Sam's desk, not quite sure how he was going to have this conversation with Tucker's rather intimidating P.A.

“Mr Reeder...?” Sam returned carrying a tea, which she set down on her desk. “There something I can help you with? Tucker is not in, if you're looking for him.”

“He's – in the car. Out front.” Ollie replied, looking a bit lost.

*~*~*

Sam doesn't knock. Instead, she opened the car door and slipped into the other seat. Without a word she passed over a tall, skinny latte which Malcolm accepted. She'd wait for him to start speaking, it was usually best. She liked to think of him as a semi-tame creature – you had to handle those carefully – let them come to you on their own terms.

Eventually, he did just that.

“What do you think of my face on the cover of The Times?” he asked, in-between sips of his beverage. “Big – full colour fuck-up with witty headlines and several follow up pictures of me in various, progressively dark circumstances...”

“They're not going to go to print with it,” Sam replied.

“Course they fucking are. I would. It's the perfect revenge – gift wrapped. It's that time of the year, isn' it? Presents and fucking feasts of washed-up cocks and skulls full of pudding.”

There was a drawn out silence between them punctuated by the soft impact of snow on the glass. It was getting heavier. Maybe he could make snowmen out of political corpses. Julius would look fantastic with a carrot in his face.

“I think you'd look good on the cover,” Sam eventually replied. “Shall I send over some of your best photos to make sure? I've got a collection.”

“I bet you fucking have,” he replied, too quickly. “Where's Jamie?”

“Screwing a few of his old press-friends in back alleys, I imagine.” She waited, then broke into a smile making Malcolm ever so slightly uncomfortable. “He's gnawing a limb off the Prime Minister. Something about a disastrous quote from a school visit this morning. I believe our honourable PM stopped short of being openly racist but it was a close call between, _'could you repeat that name again'_ and _'maybe you could try writing it down'_.” She reached over and took his empty coffee cup away when he started to sink his teeth into the Styrofoam. “Malcolm – I know what you're thinking – don't do it. You'll only make things worse.”

“Haven' got a fuckin' clue what yer on about.”

“Yes you do. If you storm into the press offices and shout in all your favours they'll know that they're onto something. I hate to say it but we should take Terry's advice on this – and be beacons of silence.”

“So what you're saying is don't paint the town red...”

“Not yet. You've got to pick your moment.”

Another silence. They'd had a lot of those lately.

“Is Julius still in my fucking office?”

“You have to talk to him eventually.”

“Fuck that. I'm going for a shout and a wank over at DoSAC. Apparently there's a zombie stumbling about that needs a bit of life threatened into them. I'm going to put ten thousands volts through the bolt in his head. Give it a bit of a twist.” Sam was looking at him instead of leaving. “Unless you've got a better offer?”

She shook her head.

“...are you coming fucking with or fucking Julius off?”

Sam picked the Julius option – mind you, it wasn't very difficult. Julius was all talk and little more than a slight grumble when you pushed him. Sam lured him out of Malcolm's office and passed him straight into a micro-crisis. He flailed about a bit before vanishing (through the walls, probably) like all vacuous ghouls. Peace fell.

“Jeeezus, what's killed your first born?” Jamie stumbled in, looking suspiciously impeccable for someone that'd been on a murderous spree all day. He was carrying a small parcel under his arm, which Sam pointed to.

“Is that the PM's organs?”

Jamie winked good naturedly.

“It's my fucking Christmas cards. Look ah – you should head off home.”

Sam – lifted her gaze darkly. Nobody save her boss told her what to do. “I – beg your pardon?”

“I'm not fuckin' about, lass. You should go.”

“It's not even four o'clock,” Sam eyed him suspiciously. “And the minute I start taking orders from you will be the first hour of the apocalypse.”

Being moderately polite was a real struggle for him which manifested in the occasional spasm across his shoulders. He stalked forward, placed his hands on her desk and leaned down uncomfortably close. Sam was prepared to stab him with a pen if things got out of hand.

“The prelude to the Tucker blood-fest,” Jamie whispered, careful that nobody else in the office could hear, “is a fictional slander.” He didn't exactly say the words but Sam caught enough in his meaning.

“What?!” she hissed.

“They have to establish reasonable cause in your motivations, Sam. Can you guess what their pin-sized brains have come up with? Yeah – pre-fucking-cisely. You gotta go. Trust me, you don't wanna be here when the Vulcan gets back. He's fucking fuming. I've seen him upset before but -”

“Jesus...” she whispered, closing the lid on her laptop. He was right, she had to go.

*~*~*

Malcolm dealt with stress by expressing it in colourful verbatim. Seeing as he couldn't direct it at the vacuous press mosh-pit pressed against his office building it was left to the long suffering driver to ignore the violent prose.

He watched them for a while, scrambling about with their camera phones and oversized cameras. It was pointless trying to fight through their broken corpses. Tucker waved at the driver to take him home. Early mark. He should be pleased.

He lowered his gaze to the newspaper in his lap. There she was in a typically manipulative photo, standing beside him on the sidelines. They'd been at one of Dan's love-ups, waiting in the wings for him to finish a particularly vapid speech. Sam had a clipboard hugged to her chest. For the briefest moment, she'd lifted her gaze, tilted her head and smiled at him. He was smiling back – taking credit for a clever insult directed at Miller's over-gelled hair. It was the tiniest, fragment of a second.

Of course what it looked like instead was a torrid affair.

The short article suggested, in a rather fucking nasty way, that he'd manipulated his – and he had to quote this, _'young and impressionable assistant'_ into acquiring sensitive data. They'd stopped short of openly accusing her of theft.

In a way he wanted to laugh. There was nothing 'impressionable' about Sam. She could coax a black hole out of its gravitational pull if she wanted to. He couldn't even get biscuits out of her if she wasn't in the mood.

He caught himself looking at the photo again. There was something else about it that made him furious – something that took most of the ride home for him to understand. _Happy_. That's what it was. They looked happy.

Why did that make him so fucking furious?

*~*~*

Home. By the time he got there he was too exhausted to shout. Instead, he wandered around his townhouse in the semi-darkness. The room was lit by the streetlights. It was freezing so he flicked the switch on his gas fire. Now the light was warm, replaced by dancing flames, fighting silently behind the glass barrier.

Malcolm sank into the couch to watch the fire. Lost in thought. The newspaper beside him.

“Malcolm?”

He startled so fucking hard his heart nearly flew out of his rib cage. Sam was standing by the curtains, leaning against the folds of fabric. She stepped out of the shadows and drew the curtains across the windows. Sensible. The press were probably on their way over.

Malcolm knew that giving her a key would bite him in the arse eventually. Slowly, he calmed down, reclining against the cushions. Truth be fucking told, he didn't have a clue what to say to her. What could you say with a story like that on every street corner? It wasn't even bloody true. Was it? He wasn't sure. He needed a drink. Malcolm felt the vein on his forehead pulse. _No_. Best not.

Tucker lifted his grey eyes, softened by the flames. Sam was in his house... When she touched his things it was as if she stirred bits of his soul – whatever was left after all these decades. He felt oddly vulnerable as her fingertips reached his books.

Sam realised that Malcolm was a philanthropist – a philosopher, a humanist and dabbling scientist. There were entire collections of speculative fiction classics on his bookshelves and a romance novel or two – to her amusement. The longer she looked, the more he fidgeted until finally, he spoke.

“I thought you'd run away...”

A pause. She smiled, turning from the books. “I have.”

Tucker frowned. Sam'd run here and he wasn't quite sure what to do about that. “Coffee?”

“Scotch.”

_Fuck._

Malcolm seemed thrilled with the opportunity to escape. While he fussed about, Sam took the liberty of exploring his living room. She'd never been here before – which was odd considering the nights he'd spent in hers. It was no secret that he frequently entertained nervous hacks and more than once Jamie had spoken about the towering monstrosity of brass resting beside the coffee table – which Sam found to be a saxophone.

“You play?” she asked, hearing him wander around the kitchen. The sound of cups and saucers clinked together. Bless. He'd made tea, not scotch. That's what she really wanted.

“What? Oh... Sometimes,” he replied evasively.

Sam touched that too, resting her hand on the cool brass. “Is that what you and Jamie do? Bum around your flat and play at band camp?”

Malcolm came in carrying a tray of tea and – fucking hell one of them must be dying – biscuits. “Nah. We fuck from wall to floor till dawn. Haven't you heard the rumours? He's got an enormous cock.”

Actually, that rumour was about Malcolm but never mind. “No one believes those rumours. Well, almost no one – except maybe Julius.” The thought of two angry Scots playing sad jazz in his flat was almost sweet.

He fussed with the tray. “We mostly talk. Sometimes play. He smokes – I don't. There's nothing mysterious.”

Tucker was a man wrapped in myth but at the end of all the stories and under the elaborations and woeful metaphors, he was human like the rest of them. Sam wasn't surprised. “It's okay. You don't have to tell me if you don't want to. You're allowed your privacy especially in your own house.”

“Sam – why are you here? It's not to pick me apart, I know that much.”

“I couldn't go home.” Sam admitted. “There's a small encampment of press at my door. It's stupid but – I just...”

“Don't worry about it,” he finished for her. Malcolm didn't have the heart to tell her that she certainly shouldn't be fuckin' seen here, of all places.

“I thought about going to Jamie's.”

“Don't _ever_ think about doing that again.”

“Jealous?”

Malcolm smirked and gave her a wink. “He's mine.”

Sam laughed into her tea. Paused. Caught his steely look start to crack and fell straight back into indulgent laughter. He couldn't stand it any more and joined her.

“Sorry,” he eventually managed, setting his cup down. “Most of the time I can't hear what I'm saying. It's just noise in a void.”

“I hear you.”

“You're paid to,” he pointed out. Sam couldn't deny it and they found themselves laughing again.

“All right. All right – that's enough fucking gaiety in the corner,” Jamie ranted, as he stormed out of Malcolm's kitchen, giving Malcolm a second fucking heart attack.

“What are you doing in my house?” Malcolm stood up and whirled around, suddenly very aware that he was wearing his comfy jumper.

“Um I'm _meant_ to be in yer house. What are you doin' in yer house?” Jamie retaliated.

“My fucking house!”

“Yeah – but at the moment there's a press conference looking for a flamin' vigil and that's you. Instead here you are like a lost teddy bear fished out of landfill. What is that, a jumper? I thought you only owned capes?”

“Wha' fuckin' press conference?” Malcolm's eyebrows nearly met in the middle.

“The one the PM organised on your behalf half an hour ago. Something about a news article... Try checkin' your phone once in a balls-blue-moon. And for _fuck's_ sake don't let anyone see _her_ leave. If they didn' have a story this afternoon they'll fucking have a shocker in the morning.”

Malcolm was swearing under his breath, stalking off to a corner of the room to check his messages. Jamie took his spot on the couch, chucking a pillow to the other side. They were only there a moment when someone knocked on the door.

“Shall I get that or do you wanna?” Jamie teased Sam, in rather poor taste. When he opened the door he was so surprised that he couldn't even form a suitable insult as Ollie slid past him into Malcolm's house. Tucker saw the snow-dusted imposter and shouted.

“Did I send out fucking invitations with one-eyed fucking carrier pigeons? What the hell is goin' on? Why are you all – Jesus Julius!” he added, when the bald man pushed by Jamie before he could close the door. “What did you do? Strap a leash on Ollie and toddle along behind – hey! Don't touch that, don't fucking touch that.”

“Evening Sam,” Ollie nodded politely.

Jamie was the worst fucking bouncer _ever_ so Malcolm stalked over and slammed the door before anything else got in. He rounded up all his uninvited guests into his living room and loomed over them.

“Okay – what the _fuck_ is going on?”


	11. Chapter 11

Malcolm was staring down a fucking nightmare.

Fear he could manage. He knew it on sight – smelled it in the air as it evaporated off his victims' skin. He understood precisely how to channel it for various nefarious purposes including but not limited to affray, blackmail, collusion, conspiracy, extortion, fuckery, heinous acts of implied violence, limb detachment, mental derailment and the occasional treason – except the treason was against his own sanity just before his frontal-lobe was thrown into the DoSAC shredder.

This was different.

The uninvited house guests were staring up at him with something unfamiliar. Tucker didn't get it. The late addition of Glen squeezing onto the sofa between Ollie and Julius only made his head spin faster. He eyed his tea suspiciously, wondering if Sam slipped something stronger than milk into it. The fuck were they all doing in his house? There went all his fantasies about a quiet night in wanking off to some festive rom-com and heaven forbid he have half a glass flat champagne to celebrate not murdering anyone in the last twenty-four hours.

Jamie brought out a bowl of snacks. A dozen hands swept through the chips until the awkward silence was replaced by crunching. Julius, the shining orb of political hypocrisy, inspected each chip before shoving it down his neck. The sight made Malcolm twitch.

“Sorry but – what – the – _hell_ are you all doing here?” Malcolm stammered.

Jamie was the only creature brave enough to stand. He took a cautious step toward the confused scot. “To help you, daft cunt.”

Malcolm's famous eyebrows tilted toward his nose. His head turned. “What?”

“Help. Malcolm. Remember that? It's on the list of human traits you despise.”

Another silence. Malcolm surveyed Jamie's face. Well _fuck him_ , he wasn't shitting around. “Christ fucking help me, if you lot are my best shot. It's like that film with the space incest and severed limbs.” Blank looks. Ollie's glass hadn't quite made it to the coffee table. It was hovering about the expensive veneer, threatening to leave a water mark. “The murder star catches fire like a hack cunt at an exorcism -”

“...Star Wars...”

“Yeah. No Fucking Hope.”

Jamie slapped him on the shoulder a little harder than friendly support.

“But,” Malcolm protested, “I don't even fuckin' like any of you.”

“Don' even worry 'bout it,” Jamie half-whispered. “I'm sure their reasons are reassuringly self serving. I know mine are. If you're killed then I'll have to blood in another miserable cunt and fire bomb half the building.”

“Okay but lets never ever fucking speak about it again.”

*~*~*

It was all quite surreal but pizza and hard liquor mellowed the atmosphere. Hours later, the laptops and notepads were out. Malcolm dragged a whiteboard from fuck knows where (probably his pantry) and a plan was scrawled over it. Once, he felt Sam's hand press briefly against his lower back as she leaned across to refill everyone's glasses. He couldn't help thinking that she was rewarding him for not tearing off any bodily parts from his uninvited guests.

“We clear then?” Malcolm asked, when he realised that they were all nodding silently at the board with nothing further to add. “Get the fuck out of my house and piss off back to the silt where you were born.” He shepherded them out the door and into the snow.

As much as he loved snow, he didn't love it inside his house so he slammed the door shut as soon as Glen waddled out and leaned against it, afraid one of them might try and claw their way back inside. He was left with Jamie and Sam. Jamie had his bollocking face on – arms folded firmly over his chest, loitering his undersized frame in the centre of the room. The effect was somewhat ruined by the drunken tilt he'd taken on.

“Where's your leash gone, by the way?” Malcolm asked, before Jamie could launch into whatever tsunami he had welling up in his throat.

“I chewed through it when you left me tied outside that fucking wank-fest at the circle of living shits. The round table of cock-ups so colossal the Romans couldn't find a slab of marble big enough for their balls.” Just when you think he's going to walk away, the fantastically creative abuser in parliament turned back on his victim. “Yeah – one of them snapped off,” he mimicked a giant stone nut being torn off in his hand, “and caused a small meteor strike _on another planet_.”

Malcolm laughed gleefully at the nightmare he'd carefully nurtured. “I'll just go fetch it then. Need to lash you to the side of a nasty fuck-off ice-burg, if you know what I mean.”

“Oh – fuck you,” Jamie didn't want to clean up the mess at DoSAC.

“Later.”

Sam chose this moment to wander in carrying a tray with two espressos. Jamie eyed her warily then pointed his coffee rather seriously at Malcolm. “You better do something about this. You've got a breaking news story wandering around your flat carrying refreshments.”

“I thought you were leaving?”

“Yeah. I'm leavin'.” Jamie put his empty cup down and wandered out the door – brushing his shoulder against the frame on the way out before launching drunkenly onwards.

“Is he going to be okay?” Sam asked, coming to stand beside Malcolm at the front door.

“He shares genetic material with a cockroach. He's indestructible. Last twat standing.” Malcolm paused, then looked down at Sam and realised that they were standing in his doorway and fuck-knows if wasn't Jamie's voice he heard in his head telling him to draw the curtains and fuck off back inside. “Inside. Come on.”

Sam set the tray of empty cups down and eyed the room. Malcolm's neat house was a train wreck.

“Did you do this?” he asked her, in a low whisper.

Sam really wished she'd never heard him use that tone. It went nicely with his damp hair from earlier. “Did I do _what_?” she replied, innocently.

He shook his head at her. He knew she did it. “Later on. When this is over. We're going to have a conversation about this.”

*~*~*

Returning to work in the festive season was odd. With most of the public servants taking liberties with their annual leave, the remaining staff were outnumbered by photocopiers. The trial was briefly put on pause and the press weren't going to go forward with the 'story of the year' while everyone was away. They had a small window of breathing space and shit loads to do.

Actually, the silent efficiency of their plan was rather alarming.

“You need to go and shout for a bit,” Sam had actually said to him, while setting out the tapes from last night's radio interviews.

“I beg your pardon?”

Sam lofted her eyebrow at her boss. “You haven't torn anyone's head off for a few days. This calm, polite facade you've put up is alarming people.” Especially her.

“Let me get this straight, you're advising me to go and abuse a few emotionally damaged politicians in the holiday season who are already so depressed that they've opted to spend quality family time sitting in empty offices with savage paperwork as company?”

“Well – yes.”

Jesus. Jamie was right about his P.A. “Can I have a skinny latte first?”

“If you like.”

“Couple of biscuits?”

“Don't push it.”

Fuck him if Malcolm didn't catch his P.A. wink as she wandered out of the room. He was starting to worry that maybe she got off on watching him rampage through the hallways with bits of dead minister stuck to his jacket.

...and he wasn't sure how that made him feel.

*~*~*

DoSAC was as good a place as any for a bit of festive shouting. Some cunt had strung tinsel over the doorways which hung far too low, nearly hanging him on his way in. If he found any mistletoe he'd chew the head off the closet person to the offending decoration.

“You know – Christmas has already happened. Shouldn't you be taking all this fuckery down?”

Terry was at her desk, sorting through Dan Miller's Christmas cards. No doubt she was trying to find the least offensive ones to put on his desk. Malcolm smirked. He'd sent a card in.

“It's tradition to leave it up until New Year,” Terry replied. “Saves on the office budget. Are you here on official business or did you get bored skulking around the empty corridors?”

Malcolm narrowed his eyes. “I don't have emotions. I'm just a veneer of anger spread over a core of spite. Where's the droid?”

“Picking out photos of himself for the next electoral pamphlet.”

Malcolm flinched which face muscles he didn't realise he had. “He really is the most vapid, soulless cockup to ever head up this department.”

“No arguments there. No. That was quite a succinct summary of the Minister.”

“Is – is that a fucking tennis ball pinned to the top of that tree?”

Terry leaned around her desk to view the sad looking Christmas tree. “Ah yes. It was better than the effigy of -” she nearly said, _your head_ which is what was there before, “-Peter's head.”

“Ha ha ha...” Malcolm offered a false laugh. “Last year it was my right ball sack so – improvement, yeah?”

*~*~*

“Malcolm Tucker...” Dan Miller was doing exactly what Terry said – pawing through pictures of his own face, scrutinising them and aligning them in columns of preference. “Is this double-up bollocking? Things must be slow at Number 10 for both you and Jamie to grace the offices of DoSAC.”

This cunt was one breath away from leader of the party and every time Malcolm laid eyes on him he had a micro-panic attack. “Sorting out the crime stats one profile picture at a time?”

The delivery was flat, as was Miller's reaction. Malcolm frowned. He hated it when the object of his aggression acted like a deflated soccer ball. It took all the joy out of shouting. He may as well just find an empty room and stamp on a keyboard. Bland. That's what this place was. Christ, he missed Nicola's haze of madness.

“Is – is this it – is this all you've been doing?”

Dan shrugged, cutting out another picture of himself. “Government's away. There are no press. The halls are quiet. What am I supposed to do?”

“I don't know. Try and create a little energy. It's like walking into a crematorium for the politically insane. This office is fifty shades of who gives a fuck. The opposition is on screen every five minutes with Christmas lights wrapped around their heads talking up joy and hope.”

“Do you want me to give a press conference wearing antlers later this afternoon?”

Malcolm narrowed his eyes. “It'd be a fucking start. Maybe you could slip in something useful while you're at it like a massive fucking egg of shit for the opposition to digest with their pudding and turkey.”

“Book it in my diary.” Dan didn't even look up from his kindergarten activity.

“Oh – O – Okay. I will. I will do that.”

Malcolm's eyebrows did something akin to disappointment. It hadn't been quite the therapeutic shouting he'd been after.

*~*~*

Jamie's mouth was so close to his phone his fangs scratched the screen. The Editor of The Times was a true hack and if you ever wondered where the likes of Tucker got their vengeful vernacular from look no further than their fledgling days in press offices.

“ _Tucker?”_ Jamie hissed, holding his other hand over the phone to muffle his reply. _“Have you seen him? The only thing that'd shag that ghostly corpse is a giant fucking spider and even then it'd be a huge misunderstanding which the arachnid would regret immensely. Yeah – you go ahead and print that, you tosser. See if your career survives five minutes of creative free-form verse. My punctuation is so tight it's giving Shakespeare a fucking hard on. You better pray that you can still type after I snap all of your knuckles because you're gonna need them to draft your own obituary. Yeah. Print it. Fucker. You're gonna what? You don' have that 'cause no one has that -”_ Jamie pulled back and looked at his phone. “Hung up on me? You mother -”

Jamie's phone beeped as a photo came through from the Editor. With trepidation, Jamie opened the attachment and felt his blood skip the boiling phase and evaporate through his skin. It was slightly blurry, clearly enhanced but indisputably a photo of him and Malcolm's P.A. tangled up at the Christmas party. The other recipient on the txt – _Tucker_.

He couldn't manage to say anything so he smashed his phone against the wall.

*~*~*

Malcolm's phone buzzed, sliding across the surface of his desk amongst the remnants of dismembered fruit. The hell did the Lord and Master of the press want with him this time? He already had Malcolm's soul on a gentle grill.

_Ah..._

Tucker put the phone back on his desk.

*~*~*

Julius heard the distinctive rumble of the approaching Jamie. More correctly he heard the front door slam followed by muffled swearing as the man made his way up the corridor. Julius got up from his desk, reaching his door just as Jamie was stalking by.

“Ah – I've been meaning to -”

Julius was cut dead off as Jamie pulled the door closed on him and proceeded on his stalk down the hallway toward Malcolm's office.

*~*~*

“Did you have an appointment today?” Sam asked, standing as Jamie stormed up.

“I'd have called ahead but my phone's on the blink.”

She frowned. “What happened to it?”

Jamie deposited the ruined piece of technology on her desk. “It died,” he said simply. “Is he in?”

Sam nodded.

*~*~*

Malcolm wasn't the least bit surprised when his door opened. They didn't say anything. Jamie stood at the closed door, waiting. Malcolm scrutinised Jamie for a long time, staring at him with clear, sharp eyes. No one really appreciated how close to the cuff Malcolm wore his thoughts until they found themselves directly in his path.

There were lines and _fucking lines_. Jamie knew this was the latter.

*~*~*

Sam glanced over to Malcolm's door. The silence was deafening.


	12. Chapter 12

“Malcolm's wandering around like he lost a sock...” Glen looked up from the crumpled edge of his newspaper. Frankly, deciding between manning the fort at DoSAC or renovating his sister's house, this was the most relaxing option and he had a sideways chance of surviving it with all his limbs intact. He even had a Christmas Card from Malcolm, The Second Coming sitting on his desk. _Fuck off and Die_ or something. That was as cheery as the Director of Communications got.

Terry lifted her nose and rolled her chair back. Malcolm was pacing nearby. Jamie was nowhere to be seen. It was sad – like clipping a bird's wing. Oh Malcolm could still flutter about but it wasn't quite the same – he kept ramming into walls. “Well, they really are left and right,” she replied.

A crease formed on the bridge of Glen's nose. “I don't think so.” Far as he could tell, the wolves were of the same pack.

“Sure,” she corrected. “One stands to the left of the apocalypse and the other on the right. They've been getting a good tan lately with all that business down at the inquiry.”

Glen couldn't fault Terry there so he nodded.

“Do you think that'll go away now after all those stories in the paper? That Baroness... Did you read that one where she was – Glen?”

He'd stopped listening a while ago and was instead watching a comrade approach from the West. “Ollie...”

Ollie wanted to smash his face into the nearest wall. He'd been hoping to sneak through the building unnoticed. He made a non-committal sound.

“Can you go see what's wrong with Malcolm?”

“M-Me go – why don't _you_ go?” Ollie's shoulders dropped in dismay.

“He likes you better.”

“Oh _thank you_ very fucking much.” Obviously no one had told Ollie that his hair had bits of tinsel in it. The entire building was raining decayed decorations. “That's like being given a friendly terminal illness. Yeah. No I feel so much better now. I'll add him to my lonely hearts list – he's right up there with Vlad the Impaler and Satan.”

“Come on, Ollie,” Glen lowered his paper to the table. “The only person with a direct line to the devil is the ghoul pacing in the hallway.”

“I hear they play sweary scrabble once a fortnight.”

“It's not like you've got anything better to do.”

Ollie feigned offence. “My existence doesn't actually revolve around the – _I'm going – I'm going!_ ” He lifted his hands in defeat when Glen threatened to nudge a press review form in his direction.

Talking about Malcolm and approaching the creature himself were two very different things. Ollie edged out of the glasses doors – dis-entangling himself from a dangerous hanging of tinsel before taking a few cautious steps toward Tucker. He wasn't happy. Ollie knew that for sure because he didn't have his phone out and he wasn't assaulting anyone nearby.

“M-Malcolm?” Ollie stuttered.

Malcolm stopped. Turned slowly. Lifted his face, eyebrows-first.

Ollie took a step backward in alarm.

“I – I was wondering if – you -” _are okay_ seemed like a really dangerous thing to say so Ollie quickly switched to, “-need anything?”

Malcolm paced forward like a raptor, eyes locked on Ollie. The man's fucking veins were pulsing in his sclera. Ollie retreated until he his back hit the glass doors of DoSAC. Tucker didn't stop. The Director of Communications lifted a bony hand and pressed his fingers uncomfortably hard against Ollie's rib cage.

“A spike,” he hissed. “A really long, sharp fucking medieval looking nightmare. Something I can mount heads on with the little twisty bits at the end.”

“I'm not sure they sell those down at the shop...” Ollie started to say before he was cut off by a fearsome stare.

“Make sure it's got a curve at the tip. Serrations – yeah, plenty of those. And it better be the scariest fucking poker I've ever envisioned. We're talking a living, breathing rendition of my nightmare formed in good o'l British iron. Find one of those fuck-off crazy medieval twats with more muscle than brain.”

“Right...” Ollie walked away, legitimately unsure if Malcolm wanted him to purchase a weapon or if it was some kind of extended metaphor for strong coffee.

“Psst!” Glen hovered awkwardly at the edge of his office as Ollie approached. “What'd he want?”

“Fifteen junior ministers and a sound proof room. How the hell do I know? Only a fraction of Tucker actually resides in the real world. It's like he's got one foot in the Matrix. I think he just wants cocaine intravenously through his eyeballs.”

“That's probably not a brilliant idea.”

“Oh gee, thanks for that advice. Like I'm gonna feed the monster hallucinogens. That's how world wars start. Why does he always come here when he's in a mood? Aren't there other government departments in this building yearning for attention?”

“We're his ball pit.”

Glen made a justifiably horrified face as he contemplated being one of Tucker's balls. Ollie was left scarred.

Meanwhile Terry and Tucker had accidentally locked eyes through the hallway and bit of glass panelling in the door. He looked like he was going to melt the fucking glass so she rolled back to the safety of her computer and pretended to make a phone call.

*~*~*

Julius had about as much sleuthing talent as Jacques Clouseau. Sam watched him slink through the room, frame by frame like an ultra-slow catastrophe unfolding in bluray. When he finally got to the point of his visit – placing an envelope surreptitiously on her desk – she'd damn near died of old age. _Jesus_ he seemed to be genuinely enjoying the experience.

Sam placed a file over the envelope, cleverly concealing it from view. “Biscuit?” she offered.

“No, no... No time for biscuits. Important matters to attend.” Julius finished that off with a heavy wink.

Eventually the really crap Austin Powers left. Sam waited before picking up her file (and the envelope). She vanished into Malcolm's office, closing the door behind her. The envelope was immediately torn to shreds.

“Oh hell yes...” she hissed, as the contents spilled over Tucker's desk.

_Rome came to the party._

_X S_

Sam held her phone to her chest until it buzzed against her skin.

_Time to watch it burn. Grab your coat._

_X M_

*~*~*

“I heard he was dead!”

“Oh _please_ , he's not actually dead,” Glen rolled his eyes at Terry. “Contrary to Wikipedia, Malcolm doesn't literally murder other human beings. His violence is metaphoric – like the Daily Mail's wit.”

“Yeah well,” Terry tapped her nose knowingly, “Jamie's missing, last seen heading into Malcolm's office. Another story's going to break that has nothing to do with the inquiry.”

“Malcolm can't kill Jamie,” Glen insisted. “The two are linked by dark magic.”

“I'm only repeating what I've heard on the vine.”

“Aren't you supposed to be promoting Miller's TV spot? The one with the antlers?”

“Well, I have tried but that's the thing about hacks and holidays – they're all drunk or high. All I'm getting is answering machines. Miller could set himself on fire and streak over Westminster and nobody'd notice.”

*~*~*

“Did it work?” The Lord of Darkness himself apparated in the living room. Jamie was there already, sipping coffee and flicking through a trash mag which had clearly gotten there on its own because Tucker would never purchase such a thing and leave it lying around in the open.

“Yeah – people think you've dissolved me and added me to the watering system. I'm not buried in the walls of parliament, I'm painted right on the surface. Fresh new coat of murder.”

That made Malcolm smile. “Great.” He unravelled a long, red scarf from his neck. It was covered in ice and already growing damp. “And how's your death been so far? Been busy?”

Jamie was about to reply when he noticed that the pillows on Malcolm's couch had hilarious details. “You've got little pink tassels on yer pillows!”

“Oh _fuck off_. They're Amaranth.”

“...that's a kind of pink...”

“Jesus, I didn't realise I invited fucking Monet over for supper. Can I get you a haystack? Or maybe,” he rustled around in his coat, dragging out his phone. “Maybe my personal assistant is more to your liking?”

Jamie found himself presented with the photo again. He raised his hands in immediate surrender. “Yeah, 'bout that. She got her Scots mixed up.”

“Easy fucking mistake. We're basically the same fucking person, except I'm a wee bit taller and wear proper trousers. Yours don't even fucking fit.”

“Short. I'm _short_. I can' help that they drag a little.”

“Learn to sew.”

“Wait – you _sew_?”

“Don' change the subject.”

Jamie was grinning like a mad cunt despite existing on the thinnest of ice. “No – this is worth getting straight.” He set his drink down and shifted forward. “You're actually domestic, aren't you? You cook – you sew – you clean – you...”

“Did you actually want to die today – because it can still be arranged. I've got a watering can and everything.”

“Oh fuck off and have a skinny latte, you look like a Halloween decoration.”

“I heard swearing and assumed it was safe to come in,” Sam announced, as she wandered freely through Malcolm's house.

Malcolm dropped his phone in fright. Jamie didn't dare draw attention to it.

“Are those embarrassing photos of our favourite panellist?” He asked instead, pointing at the torn envelope in Sam's hand.

“Julius is one of those oddities of the world – he lords over dark vaults in the earth but nobody's quite sure how deep his roots go.” She handed the photos over so that the pair of Highlander spawn could have a wank. “Why did Ollie leave an iron poker outside your office this afternoon?”


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone for all the reviews. Here's something a little bit festive (well, as festive as you can get in this place).

No one could remember how the drinking started.

Malcolm's pristine coffee table had developed a rash of liquor bottles arranged in a monochromatic rainbow of pure fuck. Sam, book-ended by Jamie and Malcolm, leaned forward to hold the shot glasses steady as Malcolm struggled to pour another round. The bottle was slipping in his hand as though made from the core of a dying star. Finally, last glass brimmed with something vile.

“Steady fucking on!” Jamie protested, noticing that it was his. “I know you said you were gonna kill me but does it have to be with cheap shit excavated from your cabinet?”

Malcolm was horrified. “S'not cheap!” he protested, slurring slightly as he lifted Jamie's glass.

“Shit knows what it's been bunking with in there. Bits of brimstone and Hades' left bollock...” It was overfilled and dribbled over the lip as Jamie took ownership of it. He awkwardly sucked his wrist as torrents threatened to spill into his cuff.

Malcolm watched. “You're acting like an animal. _Are you_ some kind of Vermilingua? No? Then stop licking your fuckin' fingers when you're on my couch!”

“Hey!” Jamie shouted, then turned to Sam, calm as anything. He ran his free hand through his hair, drawing attention to a fresh streak of grey. “This is a decorative flourish that doesn', in any way, resemble an insectivorous mammal.”

“ _Giant Anteater,”_ Tucker corrected, not liking the way the other man leaned toward his P.A..

“You know what your problem is? Too much Discovery Channel. Lion fucking. New king of the Savannah rocks up and tears all the junior ministers to bits.”

“Where do you think I ge' my deeper understandin' of the political maelstrom from?”

Sam's head hurt. “Enough. It takes too much energy to filter out your extended metaphors.” As Malcolm sank into the couch, she caught a glimpse of his phone sticking up from his inner jacket pocket. She half lunged for it. “Let me see it!” Sam demanded, for the thousandth time in the last hour. If there was a questionable picture of her loose in the world, she wanted to see it before the rest of the plebs. God. Her brother was never going to let her hear the end of this if he found out.

“NO!” they replied in unison. Malcolm buttoned up his jacket to keep her at bay. Much as she wanted his phone, he knew Sam wouldn't wrestle him for it.

“It's going to be in the paper anyway,” she mumbled, tilting forward awkwardly as she attempted to pick her glass up.

Both Malcolm and Jamie tried not to watch too intently. They really shouldn't be drinking with her in the first place and a rather large, sensible region in the back of their skulls was thundering protests every time inappropriate thoughts skipped into view. The pair of Scottish drunkards had to remember that Sam wasn't their burd. It was equivalent to having questionable thoughts for a filofax.

“I can hear you,” Sam muttered, without looking at them. “Having silent conversations with your eyebrows.”

“Fuckin' mad, this one...” Malcolm winked.

“An' it's no' going to be in the papers,” Jamie insisted. “Not if the editor wants to keep his proximals attached to his metacarpals.”

Malcolm narrowed his eyes. “The fuck you on about?”

“The – thingys,” Jamie held his hand up, pointing to his fingers.

“Did you _threaten_ the editor of Times?”

“Might have done.”

Malcolm reached over Sam to slap Jamie on the back. “They grow up so fast.”

“All right – all right,” Sam struggled to keep a hold of her drink while they playfully fought across her. “If you're going to make out – get your own couch.”

“Darlin' this _is_ my couch.” They disentangled themselves anyway.

“Jamie's right – it is _shit_ ,” Sam added, setting an empty glass aside.

Malcolm mistook that as a challenge. He got up and picked his way through the assortment of bottles, searching for something better.

“You'll hurt his feelings,” Jamie whispered against Sam's ear.

“Impossible,” she replied, well aware that Tucker was listening. He was like Nixon's tape recorder, always tuned to _incriminate_. “Haven't you seen the spread? He is a man without feeling. A demon masquerading as a spin doctor. _The Walking Dead of Westminster_.”

“That was my favourite,” Jamie lifted his freshly empty glass in Tucker's direction. “Nice photo too. One of yours?”

“This'll put some hair on your cock,” Malcolm filled the shot glass with an unknown substance.

Sam feigned revolt. “Urgh – is this why you two drink alone? No – don't give me that. Yeah – that one – that'll do. Careful!”

Tucker nearly tipped over himself. He wasn't ready to admit it but the ground did seem to be wobbling on its own. “Re-fucking-lax,” he waved the hands off. “The Leaning Tower of Pisa has more of a tilt and you don' see anyone panicking about that.”

“It's a national stone monument,” Jamie pointed out. “If it goes to fuck there'll be a shitting great pile of marble dust but you-” he gestured drunkenly at Malcolm, who wasn't fairing much better, “who knows what'll spew forth from your corpse. Could be Pandora but with more fuck and no goddamn hope. You might be one of those Russian doll things – giving birth to a dozen, smaller, scarier versions of yourself.”

“Commonly called, 'children',” Sam pointed out. Tiny Tuckers? She wasn't sure that was a good thing.

“I'm pretty certain there's an act in parliament preventing that.”

“Oh – _Christ_...” Malcolm was interrupted by his phone. “Miller's appeared on TV wearing antlers.”

“As in...” Jamie did his best to impersonate a reindeer.

“No, a couple of fucking rhino horns lashed to his forehead – yeah – antlers. He looks like a computer generated queer float at _Dia de los Muertos._ ” He flicked on the TV which obediently presented them with the full horror of a festive Miller. “I've gotta go shout at him for a bit – ram those branches through is ears and out his rectum. I'm going through a bit of a Shelley phase. Think I might turn him into a lost chapter where things get very creative in a nasty, violent sort of way.”

A vision of a rampaging, drunk scot wielding Christmas accessories made Sam latch onto his sleeve in panic. She yanked him back to the couch. Tucker landed awkwardly, with his hand on her shoulder and hers – well hers slid down the inside of his thigh. Sam hadn't noticed. Tucker wasn't breathing.

Tense seconds passed. Jamie was confused, eyebrows nearly at his ears.

“Oh my god – is that the -” Sam swiped Tucker's forgotten phone from the floor and retreated. “That's a terrible photo of me!”

“NO!!!” They both shouted, launching themselves in her direction in pursuit of the phone.

It was too fucking late.

*~*~*

Glen was doing his rounds of the office when he noticed the alarming silhouette of the minister. “Should – should you still be wearing those?” he asked carefully, leaning around the door.

Dan Miller was behind his desk, staring at the opposing blank wall. “I was instructed to be festive. I am festive.”

His advisor frowned. “I'm not entirely sure Malcolm was serious about the – well, put it this way. He says a lot of things that require translation into reality.”

Silence.

Glen hovered to see if the vacuous carbon unit masquerading as a minister did anything else. Nope. That was it for today. Maybe Ollie was right and he really was grown in a lab. He was just a thin sheen of human flesh looking that'd be more useful made into one of Tucker's briefcases.

*~*~*

Ollie was watching the evening news with a pained expression half-hidden behind his glasses. “It's made CNN...” He muttered, as Glen wandered in with a cup of tea.

Glen flinched at the screen. “He looks even worse in high definition.”

“It's colour-correct. All the American channels do it. They live in an alternate version of reality where the world is viewed solely through Instagram filters. Any word from Malcolm? He must have seen this by now.”

“Maybe he's dead.”

“Did you wish really _really_ hard?” Ollie changed the channel and found another, larger version of Miller's ridiculous head. “Scary as he is, politics without Malcolm is the gates of hell without the gates.”

“You're right there. A healthy air of fear stops things like this happening.” He pointed in the direction of the screen. “Malcolm hates Miller. He's the voodoo doll that won't scream.” Malcolm and/or Jaime should have made an appearance by now. “This quiet is disconcerting. There's something not right without the _mofos_ of spin stalking the halls.”

_Mofos?_ Ollie mouthed. “Don't use words like that, Glen. It's just – wrong. What are  _you_ doing here anyway, don't you have a wall to lovingly plaster?”

“The tea's better here.”

“Is that the – only – quality to recommend DoSAC?”

“Yes.” Glen took another tepid look at the screen. “The only time that international news should be aware of our politicians is if we're declaring war on them.”

Ollie was shaking his head. “Cabinet ministers can't declare war. It's not the 1700's when all you needed was a flag and open patch of ground. You couldn't even get Miller to conquer the Christmas lights at Townhall!”

“ _That_ wasn't my fault! They were sore about Nicola cutting down that tree for the new bus shelter.”

“ _Tree-gate_. The newspapers drew a wonderful likeness of you.”

“As a pine-cone – growing out the side of Nicola's tree suggesting that I'm one of her reproductive organs. I'm not even bald.”

“It's the closest you'll get to appearing in a porno.”

“Am I interrupting?” Terry hovered at the door, holding her mobile aloft. Ollie suspected that her arm was actually welded into that position. She noticed the TV. “Oh dear – that's not going to play well. It makes him look quite pale – don't you think?”

“That's his natural colouring. Off-white. It happens to things which don't have a pulse.” Ollie nodded at the phone.

“It's Tucker.”

“What did he say?”

“Nothing really,” Terry replied. “It's – he sent a photo of a hat. Like, a Sherlock Holmes hat. I don't understand.” She turned it so they could see.

“It's a _deer stalker_ , Terry.” Glen set his tea down.

*~*~*

“ _The Fawcetts of politics. Spin doctors missing in action. The earlier disappearance of Senior Press Secretary, Jamie McDonald has spread to his well-feared mentor, Malcolm Tucker. Often referred to as, 'The Heart of Darkness', speculation is rife that all is not well within the opposition. In their absence, the minister of the Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship was seen earlier this evening wearing_ -”

“Enough!” Tucker snapped the lid closed on the laptop. “The fucking cheek to suggest we're a father and son team. I must have had you when I was swimming up a fallopian tube. Stop laughing or get ou' of my house. Where's Sam?”

“You sen' her fer biscuits.”

“I can't believe she's locked us in.” Tucker folded his arms crossly. He was a prisoner in his own house. The decision had been made to save the world from the wrath of two inebriated spin doctors panting for a fight. It was utterly imperative that they didn't do anything to sabotage their side project of surviving the Goolding inquiry. Basically, she was spoiling all his fun.

*~*~*

“Are you _sure_ this is what Malcolm meant?” Glen muttered, half a step behind Ollie. They were en-route to Dan Miller's office intent on giving him a right talking to.

“The follow up txt was pretty clear unless he wants us to actually hunt deer.”

“What are you going to say?”

“I don't know – what does Malcolm normally say? A load of inexplicable, difficult to follow, expletive-laden, extended analogies. We'll just – swear at him a bit and leave.”

Glen didn't look so sure. Dan Miller was essentially a species of brick wall.

Even worse – he wasn't in his office.

“Oh _fuck_!” Ollie hit the door and then held his hand protectively to his chest as it throbbed. “He's gone.”

“Well that's good, isn't it? When Malcolm asks us what happened we'll simply tell him that the minister wasn't here.”

“Are you mad, Glen? If we don't find Miller and shout at him, Tucker's going to find us and – and shout at us, or turn us into a pie – or whatever it does when his minions fail. Do you want to be pie?”

“No but he's gone. There's not a lot we can do about that, unless you want to follow him home. Ollie? Ollie... Ollie _no_.”


	14. Chapter 14

“Can we go?”

“No.”

“How about now?”

“Glen, if I didn't need an accomplice I would have killed you by now.”

Glen looked far from concerned. “Oh yeah – with what? The sharp bit on your glasses?”

“Yes. Straight through the neck.” Ollie made a crude stabbing action much like a four year old playing with a stick. “Cause of death – murder by the clinically bored in a haze of cold coffee and whatever _that_ was.” He inspected the corpse of an energy drink.

“Well why don't we go in then instead of sitting out here watching him from the car like actual stalkers?”

“Not even Malcolm would shout at one of his own MPs in the middle of a public place. We have to wait until he comes out. Then we'll ambush him. Then we'll go.” The pub was brimming. There was only one exit and they had that covered. Miller's car was a few in front – there was no way that they could miss him. All they had to do was patiently wait for him to emerge.

Glen set about tearing open a chip packet, rustling the foil around then _crunching_ loudly. Ollie couldn't handle the noise for more than a few minutes before -

“What are you doing?”

“What's it look like?” Glen held up the chips as he shrugged. “This is clearly my best opportunity for dinner.”

“A packet of crisps and you're done for the night? No wonder you stomp around all day with a ridge across your forehead. You're hangry.”

“That's not even a word, Ollie.”

“It's a colloquial turn of phrase and quite acceptable in the present circumstance. It's not like I'm Shakespeare, pushing bits of unrelated words together and trying to fob it off as language. The greatest genius of English history was probably an illiterate drunk.”

“Don't let Malcolm catch you saying that. He's got a soft spot for the master of words.” Another chip. An avalanche of noise. “He steals a lot of his best lines.”

“And confuses the living shit out of anyone born after the eighties with choice extracts. You know, he spent twenty minutes torturing one of the interns the other day and the poor idiot had no idea what was being said. It's a waste.”

“Like Dan Miller... Have you thought about what we're going to say to him?”

“I don't know – insult something he loves?”

“That'd be his hair then...”

“Over-gelled, receding mop of ken-doll-esque horror.”

Glen nodded. “Yeah. Dyed wankery.”

“Now who's making up words?”

“Chip?”

“No.”

*~*~*

“Sitting by the door isn't going to help.” Sam folded her arms, standing over the once fearsome man. Now he looked all sulky because she wouldn't let him have a go at his favourite chew toy. “Jamie's trying to play your saxophone. You better go stop him.”

All she got in reply was a doleful pair of eyes. She sighed and sank to the floor beside him. Sam poured the remaining scotch from her glass into his which vanished as though he breathed it. A few frightful notes from a musical instruments wandered through the house.

“I know what this is about,” Sam continued, more softly. “This night. Your elaborate display of frankly alarming liquor...”

He was silent. The foyer where they sat was dim, lit poorly by the distant glow of the living room.

Sam set her glass down then wrestled the other one out of his icy grip. She took his hands. That was something that Sam noticed about him, Malcolm was always cold. He was the first one to draw his curtains in the afternoon and often lingered by the ghoulish fireplace in his office. It wasn't just so the flames could dance across his skin. Malcolm didn't resist as she threaded her fingers between his but he wasn't exactly helping her either. If anything, he was watching her – as a bird might observe the world from its perch, undecided.

“I'm not scared of going to jail, if that's what you mean.” Malcolm finally offered, when Sam didn't say anything else.

“That's not what I mean,” she assured him, giving his hands a gentle squeeze. “Look – it was a year ago...”

Malcolm had already started to retreat. If they weren't discussing an upcoming MP's murder or future plan for world domination, he was immediately uncomfortable. “Sam _-Sam...”_

“I was very _very_ drunk and he sounded Scottish.”

“You _really_ don't have to explain yourself.”

“Why do I feel like I do?”

“I don' fucking know,” he muttered, tilting his head to rest back against the door. It was freezing outside, cold leaching through the oak. “Shouldn' that be a question for yer therapist? You vomit out all your secrets then screw 'em six ways to the sun.”

“If I had a therapist, Malcolm, they'd be a shivering, damaged, wreck. Besides which I'd probably have to kill them after every session. I'd be a very expensive enterprise.”

He laughed this time. Softly.

She brushed her thumb over his knuckles. That caught his attention. “The papers are going to think I have a thing for your kind,” Sam added lightly. “First you now Jamie.”

“They shouldn't have printed any of that – about -” he couldn't even bring himself to say, 'us'. “It's about shredding my reputation before they run the final, damning story. They couldn't care less if I shagged a bar stool.”

“More fool them,” Sam assured him. “Turning you into a human is far from helpful to their cause. It'd play better if the world envisioned you as a supernatural demon.”

“Don' help...”

She gave him an innocent look.

“An' stop slipping them yer happy snaps.”

 _Well,_ Sam thought quietly to herself, _if he was destined to be in the paper she'd make sure he looked damn good._

*~*~*

“Rock n roll...” Ollie exited the car so fast he slipped on the pavement and fell back against it with a _thunk_ , sprawled like one of those models at a car show – except decidedly less appealing. He looked like a seagull that'd been hit in the face by a slice of bread. Glen strolled past, serenely buttoning his jacket against the snow.

Miller was stumbling about, gay from his ten drinks. Thank _fuck_ he had a driver waiting or they'd have to bollock him about drinking and driving at the same time – Ollie knew full well he wasn't creative enough to string antlers and road offences together.

Glen reached him first, opening with a rather disappointing, “Evening, minister.”

His impact was so uneventful that Dan didn't even notice and continued stumbling toward his ride home.

“ _Oh yeah – brilliant!”_ Ollie muttered, catching up. “He's quivering with fear.”

“What was I supposed to do – open with a punch in the face?”

Ollie was about to reply when he noticed something – off. “No – hey – wait!” He caught hold of Glen's arm, dragging him backwards.

“Ollie – let go of me! What are you – this is a mailbox! Why are we hiding behind a mailbox?”

“Stop flapping about and _look_.”

Glen  _looked_ and this time he saw what had turned Ollie into a gleeful preschooler. There was someone waiting in that car for Dan Miller and it wasn't the fucking tooth fairy. “We  _have_ to tell Malcolm,” he whispered.

“Of course we do, just hang on a mo...'” Ollie fussed about with his phone, taking photos.

Glen watched in dismay. He really was a piss-poor shot with a camera. “You'd have made an abysmal journalist.”

“Good thing I went into politics then.”

“Being shit at one thing doesn't automatically make you good at something else.”

*~*~*

“What is it about the Scots that you're so fucking keen on, then?”Malcolm asked, his voice soft – or was it simply the gallons of alcohol welling up in his throat threatening to drown him? “Is it the kilts and an outside chance at a stiff breeze?”

“It's not _the_ Scots – rather – one in particular...” Sam laid her head against the door, tiling it toward Malcolm. They were simply looking at each other – saying everything and nothing at all – inching closer or leaning down. They'd been here before, a little closer than colleagues – not exactly friends. Sam didn't have the faintest idea what they were. _They_ were definitely a collective _something_ though.

“And this – particular Scot...” Malcolm elaborated. “What were you plannin' ter do if you found him?”

Sam's eyes flicked to Malcolm's lips and he felt her hands shake against his.

“This...” she breathed.

The world slowed to a pause as Malcolm watched her moving in. He was too drunk to pay the sensible voices in his head any mind. There was no mistaking Sam's meaning. At the first touch of her lips he -

The door behind them _shuddered_. Two heavy, stupid objects collided with the outside surface making it jolt violently against its hinges as though the four horsemen of the apocalypse had been involved in a pileup. A decorative wreath fell to the snow along with a sheet of ice that smashed over Glen and Ollie's feet.

“ _Shit.”_

“ _The fuck has a wreath any more?”_

“ _Probably bloody cursed.”_

Sam and Malcolm tore apart, scooting away from the door. They stared at it dumbly for a moment, still holding hands, before Malcolm recognised the bickering voices. His eyes turned black. He was going to kill them. Actually. Properly. Murder them.

*~*~*

It felt like _hours._

Ollie and Glen were pinned against the door. Whatever snow had fallen on them was now pooled in sad smears at their feet. Ollie was still clutching the goddamn wreath from the door, holding it over his general genital area.

“A – a – a wash-up of mistakes.” Malcolm raged, pacing back and forth in front of them like a fucking mental rabid dog, except he was a little bit drunk and out of breath. “That's what you are. You're like one of those beaches you wander down, picking bits of broken shell and driftwood out of the sand. Well – _I'm gonna comb your fucking beach and make bits of overpriced furniture with shards of your soul!_ ” That bit was directed at Glen. Ollie mistakenly thought that was amusing and found himself pushed into the door. “The fuck you doing manhandling my festive decorations? Give me that!”

Jamie and Sam lingered at a safe distance.

“I've never seen Malcolm so upset by someone knocking on his door.” Jamie whispered.

Sam agreed. “You'd better put his instrument down.”

“Fuck. Point there.” Jamie spun around and strolled back into the living room where he set the heft brass instrument onto its stand. Sam took the opportunity to pour herself another drink.

“Jesus,” she remarked. “You've got fingerprints all over it. No – don't – don't wipe it down with your tie! Jamie... Honestly... What raised you?”

“It was more of a group effort, luv.”

“Any idea why Ollie and Co. are calling so late?”

“My money's on the Miller hunt. Maybe they've done us all a fucking favour and knocked the twat off.”

“Now now...” Sam gave Jamie her best cautionary frown. “If Miller's gone – who are you going to put forward next? One of Malcolm's mandarins?”

“Couldn't be any fucking worse, darlin'. Shit. We better stop that mad fucking pine tree from bludgeoning the messengers to death before they fucking deliver. Think I heard a lamp hit the wall.”


	15. Chapter 15

“Where'd that come from then?” Terry asked, barely pausing from her morning cruise around the office. No one was quite sure why she looped the place before tucking herself safely behind her desk – it probably had something to do with her ongoing campaign to kill the bank of plants outside Miller's office.

Terry's interest had been briefly drawn by the unusual addition of _antlers_ mounted on the wall where Miller's portrait used to be.

Ollie swore when he saw it, dropping his toast. Glen rushed over, levering the grotesque thing off the wall before hiding it hastily behind his desk. He'd only _just_ finished straightening Miller's portrait when the replica droid strolled in looking ever so slightly worse for wear after his night of drinking. Glen nodded in greeting. Dan gave his usual unnerving, false smile before vanishing into his office, blinds down like fucking Satan.

Glen collapsed against the wall in relief, holding his chest. He half expected to find his heart on the floor. He even looked for it.

“How the _fuck_ did Malcolm get that thing up so fast?” Ollie cursed, almost in awe.

“No idea but I'm changing the bloody locks again.”

*~*~*

There was a peculiar line of mandarins running the edge of Malcolm's desk. He was engrossed, placing each one carefully as close to the threshold as possible. It was almost a compulsive action, as though Tucker was channelling his frustration into potential kinetic energy that he could tap into with a slight jolt. Basically, he was daring the second law of thermodynamics to come out and play.

“What, _in the name of almighty fuck_ , are you doing, you crazy fuck?” Jamie asked.

It was early morning and the pair of them had taken up their usual positions in Malcolm's office. Miller's antler incident was playing silently on the TV behind while Malcolm listened to various radio interviews from the weekend, taking notes on which ministers he had to tear fingers off. 'Listening to Cunts' might as well be his job description.

Tucker was undeterred by Jamie's tone, setting down another piece of fruit. “Don' you have work to do – you know, a job – victims to round up and terrorise? My couch is not your home. Yer don' blend in with the carefully crafted décor.”

“Jesus. Have you seen your office? It's offensive to the fuckin' blind. Christ you've got at least six different examples of poor taste on that chair alone. Don' go getting' all fucking poncy on me jus' because your office has a door an' mine's got a divider. An' stop fuckin' smiling. You'll crack the windows yer fuckin' vampire cunt.”

Tucker was back on form. His grin only widened as he stood up, bundling together a pile of paperwork. “Nothing you say can annoy me today.”

“That's a fucking disappointment. You off somewhere?”

Tucker's eyebrows did a little happy bounce. “Off to spin a bit of positive press around our lord and saviour. You know – plug a few thousand volts into them until fucking sparks fly out their eyes. You stay here an' be useful listening to our ruling class of twats.”

“...You're snooping on Miller's new friend...” Jamie realised, pouring himself a cup of tea from the tray on the table. He looked perfectly ridiculous – his manners at violent conflict with his tongue. “Stop bloody smiling! I'm gonna have nightmares about your fucking, fang-filled face.”

“Thought I told you to stop nicking things from my bookshelf? Gothic literature isn't good for you.”

“An' I told yer to stop bringing your P.A. home.”

“Fuck you.”

“Fuck you, cunt.”

Tucker's grin expanded as he fetched his jacket. “I'm gonna go spread myself all over this ministerial fuck up before I settle in for a nice, relaxing afternoon of violent, abstract metaphors. I've told those fuckers at Number 10 a thousand fucking times... Saying crazy shit and doing crazy shit are two completely different things – unless you're a minister in this government and there are cameras present. Then it's the same fucking thing.”

“You were holdin' hands – don' think I didn't notice.”

Tucker leaned back through the door, “Laters...”

*~*~*

_Go._

_XM_

The click of Sam's sensible heels quickened against the marble floor. She dodged the opposition's envoy and slipped by a rabble of hacks trying to edge their way in with the junior ministers. With her hair pulled back, a neatly cut suit and a borrowed pair of glasses (that didn't make her too blind) she very nearly passed as one of the many office slaves clogging up the halls. _Walk like you own it_ , she kept telling herself, whispering it under her breath.

There'd been casual jokes about spy films but this was the first time anything actually approaching legal uncertainty had been attempted. If she was caught, it wasn't as though she could claim she was 'lost' while in the depths of a building housing members of a public inquiry she'd been sworn into.

_Oh shit._

Sam diverted into a side room which (thank fuck) was unoccupied. She lingered, back to the wall.

_Well???_

_XM_

_Busy. Hush. Patience._

_XS_

_Get a fucking move on._

_XM_

She was going to bloody slap him. He'd fucking deserve it to. He and Jamie were off swanning around doing whatever it was that psychotic spin doctors did while she was here getting her high-heels dirty for him. Bastard. She hated him.

_I hate you._

_XS_

Sam scrutinised her own message. It seemed to lose most of its effect when signed with a kiss. God-fucking-dammit.

*~*~*

Tucker withdrew his phone. His normally sinister features contorted in a terrifying, fragment of a crooked smile before he put it away and stepped toward the waiting storm of cameras and reporters. He lifted his hands, pushing them back a bit with nothing but the power of fear.

“What the Minister of Transport meant to say is that he is very sorry for the confusion regarding the unplanned road closures over the holiday break and he'll be working closely with the private sector responsible for the upgrade works to find a solution. Thank you for your time. There will be no further questions.”

Malcolm then turned and tenderly ushered out his dumbfounded minister (who either couldn't or wouldn't speak) away from the limelight. The friendly hand on his shoulder turned to a violent shoving against an empty hallway once they were out of sight. The minister's two aids were of no help, retreating from Malcolm's reach.

“How many _fucking_ times, Paul?” Malcolm leered in, eyes locked on the trembling minister. “Don't fuck things up over the holidays. You're in charge of the bloody roads. All you have to do is make sure there's no god-damn ice or building debris preventing people from getting to their miserable festive events. How fucking hard is it? I've got departments who deal in trade union existential crises and treasuries divvying up fictitious money. You've got fucking tarmac. That's it. Rubber and gravel. Get it bloody sorted or I'll find a cost-effective way of turning you into unmarked laneway.

“Pardon? What did you mumble?” he continued, getting even closer. His sharp nose nearly pieced the minister's cheek. “You're afraid of me? You should be afraid of _them_ ,” Malcolm pointed toward where the cameras had been. “That's the fucking sound of thunder. The apocalypse ebbing in with black clouds and a fuck-off tornado of shite masquerading as a blur of light. Those hacks can write nice, carefully crafted things about you or tear apart your life one letter at a time without the slightest hint of wit.”

...maybe this wasn't entirely about the minster. There was something else driving Malcolm's fury. It was almost as though it had possessed him.

“Malcolm...” It was fucking Julius, the impossible man. He kept materialising from nowhere, making Malcolm turn with that rabid glint. “That one's being groomed for great things. Please don't leave him with any visible scars.” Julius extended his arm, gripping lightly at the minister to rescue him. Malcolm's claws retracted and the minister passed into Julius' care.

“The only thing he's being groomed for is head lice.” Malcolm spat back.

The minister scampered away down the corridor with his two aids. Julius took a cautious step toward Malcolm, his voice lowered to a hush. “Come now... You know very well that he's in line to replace Miller as the next leader. Nice work with the antlers. Miller will never be PM now that he's appeared as a Christmas decoration. Your work.”

Malcolm said nothing. He'd never to his most brilliant work.

“Terry tells me you really rubbed it in,” Julius continued, not in the least bit fooled.

“Why is Terry talking to you? Oh god, you're not lovers are you?”

“Terry may not be as leaky as Glen but she's certainly full of holes. A sinking galleon.”

Malcolm was itching to pace. He put his hand on his hip, his other cupping his own face in dismay. “You better be pretty fucking sure about that twat. Transport is fucking easy street. Two weeks and I've already had to parachute myself in with an aid package. He _feels_ like hard work.”

“We're sure, Malcolm.”

Malcolm's phone buzzed.

_Got it._

_XS_

“He better behave himself with _Meet The Press_.” Tucker added. “Or I'll mail order you more than a marzipan dildo.”


	16. Chapter 16

_'Notorious spin doctor spotted among the corpses of parliament house'_ – at least, that's how the article would have read if Jamie still had his hacks' licence. Although, turning to The Mirror, he had to give the twats over there credit for, _'Evil Rises'_ even if they'd spelled his last name three different ways in two sentences. Illiterate cunts.

Jamie tilted the paper to the side, trying to get a better look at the politician cowering behind Tucker. The man who would be king... Well, it wasn't like he was going to be any worse than what they had at the moment. Could do with a new face though. Even smudged in the background he looked like a fucking snap-frozen bag of bleached vegetables. That was the _only_ quality Miller had over the rest of parliament – wet housewives jacking all the way to the poll booth.

Ollie burst into Tucker's office only to find a lower order demon keeping the throne warm.

“Oh – I – was ah – looking for Malcolm...” Ollie stuttered, still gripping awkwardly at the door handle as though he were afraid of falling into the abyss.

“Yes.”

“...is he around?”

“We're the same person.” Jamie replied flatly, folding the paper up and tossing it onto the desk.

“I don't follow...”

“Tucker and McDonald – Jekyll and Hyde. Daddy's sleeping...” he added, with a sinister curl of his lip.

Ollie swallowed unsteadily. “Which leaves me with – the Victorian psychopath?” He wasn't reassured by any part of this roleplay. “You're not going to murder me, are you? Because – because I know he has rules about blood in his office. The last time you left corpses piled in the corner he was really quite upset.” Ollie was suddenly very aware that Tucker's P.A. wasn't around to supervise.

“Was there something you wished to discuss?”

“D'you know what – it's completely left my mind. Total blank. I might just _go._ ”

“Mandarin?” Jamie held one out in offer.

“I – what?”

“Tucker... he's got them fucking everywhere. I feel like I should open up a juice stall but no one likes fuckin' mandarins so I'm auctioning them off. Except for these ones with faces on 'em. Don' know which sick bastard did that but they're a soddin' hilarious fuck.”

“I -”

“Take a mandarin you frat fucking mop of Side-Show-Bob cunt.”

Ollie decided that it was in the interest of his personal safety to take the offered fruit. He tried to put it in his coat pocket but it made him look like a one-breasted Dalek. “Can I go?”

“What's round, white, dead and bouncing through London?”

Ollie's knuckles were numb from hanging onto the door so tightly. He missed Malcolm... At least with him you knew if limbs were about to be torn off. “A – faded soccer ball?”

“Glen's fuckin' head. Tell him to come down here. I want a word.”

*~*~*

“What _exactly_ did he say?” Glen had entirely forgotten that he was wearing his glasses. They were slipping further down his nose as panic set in. He and Ollie had eloped to a stationary cupboard. Ollie was fiddling with a stapler, leaving bits of broken metal everywhere. It was inevitable that he'd staple himself to something.

“I don't know – it was kind of – vague. We talked a lot about mandarins and – Robert Louis Stevenson.”

“Pirates?”

“No. Look, think carefully. Have you done anything in the last twenty-four hours that might warrant your torture and public execution?”

“No! I mean, I came to work – I helped you print out those Mannion flags for Terry's desk – I bought a sandwich and went home. Unless his finds ham and pickle offensive I don't -”

“You had,” Ollie began, in his mocking drawl, “a ham and pickle sandwich for dinner – and that's it? Glen... I don't think there's a sad enough alternative to 'bachelor' to describe you. We'll have to call it, 'being a Glen'.”

“Sod off, Ollie. At least I don't live with two other blokes in my girlfriend's flat.”

“That was – do you _know_ how expensive rent is?” He back-peddled defensibly.

“In answer to your question, _no._ I didn't murder any prostitutes, steal state secrets or appear naked in public. The only questionable activity I did involved you and our beloved minister. You still have all your fingers so it couldn't be that.”

“You better go...”

“Go? That Scottish doormouse can't summon me, Ollie. I fall outside his purview and no matter what school yard understanding he and Malcolm might have, it's not official enough to extend to invitation-bollocking.”

“So you'd rather Jamie come all the way down here to do it.... Imagine how pissed he'll be if he has to get out of that comfy chair to shout at you.”

“Ollie. I'm not going to see Jamie. I'm not.”

*~*~*

Malcolm's car pulled up outside the building. He rolled down his window and smirked at the woman lingering outside, a hefty pile of files cradled in her arms. He could tell that she'd been there for some time by the way she was shifting her weight between her feet and the distinctly windswept look of her hair.

“I've only got a tenner but if you're after a good time...”

Sam rolled her eyes so hard they nearly fell onto the pavement. “You're _late_.”

“I was busy. Lunch kept running away from me. I had to chase it down the fucking street and massacre it in the lobby.”

“Yes, I saw. Your face is all over the internet again. You should model for GQ.”

“Oy! Get that pervy mind of yours in this car before someone sees us and mistakes me for a minster.”

Her heels clicked loudly over the cement as she wandered around to the passenger side. Once in _her_ car, she tossed the files in the back and levelled a stern look at Malcolm. “You're spending too much time with Jamie. That mad, Scottish glisten has got stuck in your eye.”

“Jamie's not the problem. This fucking inquisition is chewing into the hours I'd rather spend fisting myself into an early coronary. Did you get it?”

“The cabinets weren't exactly unlocked...” but yes, she got it.

“That's my girl. _Ow!_ ” Malcolm rubbed his chest where she'd hit him firmly with a book. _Right. Shit. He'd forgotten._ Sam was his P.A. - not his girl. Important distinction. “Right – you actually hit me.” He wasn't mad, just surprised. No one dared touch him.

“Eyes on the road. The last thing I need today is blunt force trauma followed by a coma.”

His eyebrows went up a little. “I think _you're_ spending too much time with _me._ ”

Sam laid her head back on the seat and closed her eyes. _That was probably true._

*~*~*

Jamie wasn't just occupying Tucker's comfy chair, he had a sizeable portion of the table claimed with his feet. They were resting on what was probably an important dossier, leaving prints much like a puppy that's walked mud through the house. It was a show of affection. An irritating, unnecessary, destructive affection.

_Show no fear. Show no fear._

“Glen!” Jamie stretched his arms out enthusiastically as Glen popped his head through the door. He had a big, unsettling smile on his face. “Where have you been _all this time_ , I was so worried about you! There's so much that can happen between here and DoSAC I mean, you might have been hit by a stray meteor or fallen victim to a drug-addled teenager. I was having nightmares that we were going to find you in a pool of excrement with spray cans embedded in your torso and one of those 'V' things carved into your forehead.”

_Jesus._

“Meteorite...” Glen replied. He elaborated when Jamie's eyebrows dropped. “Once a meteor impacts something it becomes a meteorite. If my demise is to be by space rock it'd be a _meteorite_.”

“Don' correct me on _that kind of shit_.”

Glen closed the door and made a strange sort of a face. “You know, if you wore a red beanie you'd actually look exactly like a garden gnome. With the curly hair – short build. You could buy yourself a fishing rod for Halloween and be done.”

_On reflection – probably shouldn't have said any of that._

*~*~*

Malcolm returned to his office to find Jamie and Glen holding some of his goddamn mandarins, laughing at Christ knows what. He paused at the entrance to his office, stuck his head back out into the hallway and shouted, “Sam... Sam! Can you order a hearse to take Glen back to DoSAC?” Tucker stalked into the room properly, edging up to the desk. The pair had gone quiet now. “And you -” he pointed at Jamie. “I wan' a word with you. Get yer feet off the fucking state secrets.” Tucker swatted Jamie's shoes until they slipped off.

“You don' get given secrets,” Jamie replied, shuffling in the chair – failing to relinquish it. “You're a press enforcer. All you get are fuck-up-cataclysms to resolve with a packet of bandaids.”

Malcolm's unhappy gaze settled on Glen, who was returning a few errant mandarins to a fruit bowl by the couch. “I told you to get out and yet you're still here.”

“That's right, Malcolm,” Glen calmly got to his feet and gathered up a few personal items he'd managed to shed in the last few hours. “I'm still here. Like an oversight in the Treasury expense log.”

“Hey!” Jamie piped up in immediate defence. “That was a genuine accident by a desperate man that in no way represents the government's approach to tax payer money.”

Malcolm waved Jamie down. “Calm down. Calm down. Everyone knows it was the act of a desperate millionaire trying to make ends meet in this crazy world.” He delivered that last bit quite plaintively.

Sam re-appeared to usher Glen away.

“Jesus, did you do this to my office?”

“The newspapers weren't me...” Jamie lifted his hands innocently.

“Go on, get out of here. I've got Baldy due any minute with another one of his glass-ceiling ideas to detonate all over me like a fucking teenage erection.” Malcolm was scampering around the room, picking up everything that the others had left scattered on the floor. There was no difference between toddlers and politicians – except that it was seen as poor fucking taste to put them in play pens.

*~*~*

“Why are there antlers in your office?” Julius asked, pausing at the strange item stashed away near the TV. “I knew you were one for blood sports but I thought you preferred bipeds.”

Tucker twitched. “How would I fucking know? This is parliament. Weird shit materialises from the aether all the time. That's how I was born. One day a corridor coughed me up. These things 'appen. Now come the fuck on or I'll nail you to a skateboard and drag you behind me like a proper pet.”

Julius took that as a hint to lay his notes across the table and make himself comfortable.

“I keep lookin' fer you in the obituaries but so fucking luck yet.” Malcolm added, tearing the skin off a mandarin.

“Sorry to disappoint you, Malcolm,” Julius was the vision of celestial calm, “but thanks to a couple of opposition policies we have an excellent medical system. They keep bringing me back and all for a very reasonable price partly funded by your taxes, what can I say?”

“If that was a very un-fucking-funny stab at Nicola's failed _Hospitals for the People_ launch last year, then I'm going to eviscerate you so completely that they're going to need a cold-case forensic team to piece together what happened. Your cock will be in the Highlands and your arse cheeks floating in the channel like some fucking sun sharks – or whatever the fuck they're called. The solar panelled sharks that drift around in warm waters doing fuck all. That'll be your corpse. Spotted – floating – flake with some chips on the side.”

“Are we still doing lunch?”

“Sure. Sam – _Sam_!” It took Sam a few minutes to trek all the way back to Malcolm's office. “Bring us a coffee, a Fanta and some fish and chips.” She was glaring at him. Why was she tearing him apart with her – oh. “Fucking please,” Malcolm added.


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dear - everyone that leaves reviews. I *heart* you all motherfuckers.

Malcolm Tucker was displeased, tossing a limp, cold chip back onto the paper where it deflated into a soggy length of refined carbohydrate.

To be honest, he was well sick of listening to Julius prattle on and on and _on and on_. It was as though he'd mastered a new form of breathing that allowed him to inhale oxygen in through his radio-dished-sized ears. If the Bald Moon of Saturn hadn't been so bloody useful Malcolm would have had him thrown out hours ago – battered one of his appendages ready for the deep fryer...

As it was, the irritating sod was a fountain of fucking knowledge and _that_ was vexing Malcolm as much as his cold dinner bleeding oil over the antique table.

Malcolm dismally tried to mop it up with a serviette. Even that was a fucking cheap piece of rubbish. Fuck, he may as well commit and polish the table with grease. Give it a nice, British sheen.

“Just – do you 'ave a pause button or something?” Malcolm muttered, holding his hand in front of Julius like a traffic warden. All he needed was a high-vis vest. “You've been on transmit for aeons.”

Julius canted awkwardly, peering around the obstacle. “If my presence is boring you, I can always leave...” Smugness filtered through his voice like a stain.

Oh how Malcolm wished he could volunteer an honest answer... “Not at all, _Lord of Arnage_ ,” he casually joshed. “I have to take a piss – keep your greasy fingers off the furniture – yeah?” He added, standing.

 _Fuck_ he'd been sitting down so long he could feel his joints re-aligning. They clunked into place with all the subtlety of a smoke stack demolition.

Dust-heavy air sank over him in the hallway. Malcolm tilted his head up, closing his eyes to the flickering lights, fighting against their inevitable deaths. A moment of peace. He cherished it.

_The click of heels_ .

“Sam? Not now, Sam...” He muttered.

_Her footsteps turned and retreated._

For a moment Malcolm regretted that.

*~*~*

Two hours deeper into the night, Julius appeared to be bored of his own voice. He'd started flapping about, tossing flippant remarks at the time instead of fucking off like the other malfunctioning carbon units. When he did finally go it was just in time. Malcolm was five paragraphs short of offering a blow job if only to stop his ears bleeding.

Tucker flinched at his internalised rant. That was a nasty fucking vision – something he could add to the general state of affairs.

To cleanse his thoughts, Malcolm strolled around his office, turning lamps off – prodding the fire into a sad, smoky pile of ash, puffing his precious pillows back up and drawing all the curtains save the one nearest his desk. He lingered there, in the dark – alone, watching London go about its business. Gradually, its lights flickered out. It never properly stopped. The same bullshit went on, dragging from one day to the next. Nothing much had changed since the Romans built a few fancy henges in the mud – or was that the drunken pagans after a heavy night of mushroom licking? Useless stone circles... yeah nah, that was probably the fucking locals. The Romans were more interested in manufactured warfare – hence the creation of politics. What a monumental waste of time that was. They'd have been better off howling at the moon with skull-fulls of ale.

Actually, he looked a bit like a shit-faced pagan.

Malcolm drew a fragile figure, watching the world. His younger self would have had something venomous to say about the state of his suit, which was little more than a crushed pair of grey pants with a white shirt rolled up to his elbows. Sometimes Malcolm felt like he was holding onto the world with his fingernails. Maybe he was.

This time, Malcolm didn't hear his P.A. slip into the room. She was carrying his jacket in her arms. Carefully, she paused behind him, long enough for her boss to detect her presence before she rolled down his sleeves and draped the jacket over his shoulders. Sam helped him into it as they had done a thousand times before. They'd said nothing. There wasn't really any need. It had been a terribly long week and after it all, it was clear that Tucker wasn't ready to go home. It was as though he was booting down or something – processing.

Sam watched him carefully before she did something new. Her hand, still on Malcolm's arm, tightened. She stepped forward until her body pressed lightly against his back. In a single, smooth motion she brought her arms gently around him. Sam was very careful, embracing him from behind as he continued to stare out the window with those sharp eyes of his.

He tensed against her. Rejection was his default behaviour but Sam persisted until he leaned back slightly.

Minutes passed and then she was gone, slipping out of the world with the smoke from the fire.

Malcolm, alone again, reached to touch the place on his arm where her hand had rested a moment ago. He didn't know what he felt – a connection to the rest of the world – or maybe just Sam... Maybe it didn't matter. If this all went south and it very probably would, what was the point in dragging her any further into this? None at all... He said firmly to himself. At the risk of being slapped again, Malcolm kept his thoughts to himself and finally went home.

*~*~*

Malcolm fucking  _hated_ the weekend. It started early with the only newspaper the general public bothered to read slammed into his door by some spotty-faced, bike-riding infant. Retrieving it was worse. Sometimes he had a little game with himself where he tried to guess which member of parliament would appear on its cover – ass out. If he got it right, he'd reward himself with a bagel.  _God_ sometimes he prayed for a natural disaster. At least he'd get to forgo the shouting before breakfast.

Breakfast... That was a pretty loose term for his thermos of congealed caffeine. Where was Sam with his skinny caramel latte? Oh that's right... weekend. Fuck weekends.

_Knock. Knock. Knock._

Malcolm's gaze was dredged up from page three of his paper. He stared at the door which such intensity it should have burst into flame.

*~*~*

“This is not a good idea, Ollie. Actually, no, I take that back. This is a shite idea. This is – is – standing in front of a Nazi art collection on the second of September, nineteen forty-five.”

“Glen?”

“What?”

“Sh!” Ollie rubbed his mittens together. It was bloody freezing – or maybe that was because they were standing in front of Tucker's house and he was an ice demon, creating his own little artificial nest of - “Morning Malcolm!” He tried to sound cheery and certainly didn't mention anything about the navy dressing gown the lord of darkness was wearing. _Were those moons and stars in the print?_

Malcolm shifted his vicious gaze between prat one and two. “Are you  _lost_ ? 'Cause you look like you've spent the last twelve hours being mauled by a bear and dragged through the snow.”

“Not lost – um – as such.”

Glen had gone pale green. A perfectly normal reaction to impending decapitation. “We're ah -”

Malcolm's patience was about as thin as the veneer of skin covering the pulsing vein between his eyes. “You've got about three seconds before I tear Ollie's legs off and fuck you with them.”

That didn't help Glen's nerves. “It's Dan. Miller. Dan Miller.”

“He's a bit -”

“Bit well-”

“That is to say-”

“-that-”

“-he's-”

“Could you hurry up please, or I'm gonna hit you with my thermos...”

Glen swallowed. “Gone.”

“So?” Malcolm shrugged. “It's Saturday morning. He's probably passed out in a back alley with half a bottle of Cointreau. Why am I caring about this?” Glen held out the silver monstrosity also known as Dan Miller's phone. Malcolm's eyes sharpened a bit but he wasn't worried – yet. “He left his phone in the office. Not exactly headline stuff.”

Glen fiddled with the phone and brought up the last txt received. It was from Tucker.

Malcolm eyed the message incredulously. “I didn' send that.”

“Are you sure?” Ollie chirped.

“Pretty fucking positive!” Tucker hissed, causing the pair to step backwards. “If I wanted to threaten the cunt I'd include .gifs of bunnies getting their furry heads ripped off.”

“He has a point there,” Ollie was forced to admit.

“I have to call Jamie – find out which one of his hack-friends is in our phones again.” Malcolm turned to leave but Ollie caught him by the sleeve.

“What do we do?”

“Let go of my arm if you want to keep your hand fer a start...”

Ollie did. “I mean, about Miller?”

Malcolm shrugged dramatically. “I don't know. Have you tried looking for him?”

“No – our first thought was to come over to your place for a ritual slaughter,” Glen replied dryly, earning a smirk from the devil.

“Well, does he have a wife or a girlfriend – recurring hooker or dungeon master that might know where he is?”

“That's the thing...” Ollie had to think about whether he wanted to follow Malcolm inside when he beckoned them to follow. “You asked for a cardboard cut-out minister so what you've got is -”

“A boring fuck.”

“What Glen said. What are you doing?”

“Everyone's got a mother,” Tucker replied. “She'll know where the little shit is. He probably sent himself the txt so he could go play squash with his Spanish lover. _What now?_ ”

“Miller's an orphan,” Glen closed the front door. Tucker's house was much the same as before only this time it smelled of coffee rather than booze. “His mother is missing, presumed dead when she fell off a cruise ship in the middle of the Bahamas. Dan Miller Senior was the victim of a hit and run and his brother was killed in action four years ago.”

“Christ. I asked for boring not a George Orwell novel. Coffee?”

Ollie took him up on the offer and regretted it. He could feel his heart hammering against his rib cage as he ingested near lethal doses of the stimulant. No wonder Tucker was highly strung.

“He's got nearly forty-eight hours to resurface.”

“Just the four, actually,” Ollie choked.

*~*~*

“Biscuits. You brought me _biscuits_.” Tucker leaned against his door frame, snow tapping softly against his face. He'd changed into a more respectable jeans and a jumper when it became clear that they were in the opening bars of a symphony.

“Out of the way, Malcolm.”

“I thought we agreed it was, 'Bond'?”

It was too cold for this. Sam pressed the packet of biscuits to his chest and nudged him firmly, pushing him inside the house.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really wish I'd started giving these chapters crazy names but it's a bit late now. This one would have been, 'That Didn't Fuckin' Happen 'Cause If It Happened We're As Fucked As Rum On A Pirate Ship'

Sam took one sniff of Malcolm's coffee plunger and tipped its contents down the sink. She could hear him in the other room, rustling about with newspapers like a crazy brush turkey scratching up a nest and adorning it with whatever biscuits had survived the initial fray. While the kettle boiled, she moved to lounge room to watch him fuss about, lingering with a barely-visible smirk on her lips.

“Where the bloody well is it?” he muttered madly at the coffee table, hands out in amazement. “How can something be lost in one square metre? How?! There's just _this_ fucking square patch of carpet and table to search.” Malcolm's eyes were darting about a thousand times a second as though he was possessed – well, more so than usual. There was always a demonic shadow over his soul. “Sam – _Sam?!_ ”

Malcolm looked to her with those saucer-eyes of his, as if she'd instinctively know exactly what he was looking for and where it was. She didn't have all the answers – just most of them. Sam blinked at him patiently. “Do I get a clue?”

“Button-thingy...” He mimed using a remote controller and violently waved his empty hand in the general direction of the television.

“Frankly, it would be astonishing if I did.” He was still looking at her as though his entire world hinged on her response. “On the speaker...” she finally breathed. Sure enough, he'd left it there, probably while pacing anxiously considering it was bookended by two empty cups off coffee.

He sneered when he saw the ring marks on the wood. “Ah – yes – right – excellent.” Malcolm darted over and started frantically flicking through channels.

“Could you either press mute or decide on a channel?” Sam flinched at the sharp static _hiss_ every time he switched. He did neither and Sam was sure it was to vex her. “Are you going to tell me what this emergency meeting on a Saturday morning in your living room is actually about? If it's about coffee, biscuits and a missing remote control – I'm _leaving._ ”

_What was the use?_

Sam knelt down, picking a few stray pillows off the floor. She puffed the poor things back to life and set them on a nearby couch where she round remnants of a mandarin.

“I had to catch the bus to get here, _Malcolm_ because someone's borrowed my car, _Malcolm.”_ That second 'Malcolm' was a touch sharper than the first. Something silver slipped off the sofa and bounced across the floor, catching her attention. Miller's phone. Sam reached it but Malcolm was on her in a flash, snatching it away.

“No – don't touch that.”

“Malcolm, it's a phone not Gandhi's arse. Not your phone though,” she observed, leaning in to catch a better look at it. Malcolm's phone was adorned with a scratches from battle but this one was pristine. “Whose phone is that?”

“Dan Miller's...” he replied, with an unusual amount of concern in his voice.

“I told you not to play swapsies at gay bars. Awe come on,” Sam lightened her tone when he didn't so much as nibble at her challenge. “What's wrong with you today? It's not like you were dragged out of bed and trudged half way across the city in the snow.”

“I apologised for that.”

“No – you didn't.”

Malcolm was holding the phone as though it were some kind of dragon egg – both fragile and ready to hatch a nasty fuck-off monster at any moment. “He's missing. Not the kind of missing that we have a laugh about when his life explodes in an entertaining news feature – 'missing' in that he's fallen off the face of the fucking planet like some cosmic-dish-elephant-world-thing – and someone's dropped the fucking dish.”

“Jesus, Malcolm, are you actually worried?”

“Do I look like a vision of calm?”

“Honestly it's hard to tell, you only have one setting. Resting carnage.”

Malcolm took a moment to narrow his gaze at his P.A. “Careful.”

“Coffee?”

The kettle started screaming for attention at exactly the right moment.

*~*~*

“I feel like we should be calling the police – or something.”

“Oh yes,” Terry scorned Ollie. They'd been forced to call her when it turned out she had custody of the company car for the weekend, which apparently Terry took very seriously and flat refused to let them borrow it. The unpleasant middle ground was her behind the wheel and Glen in the back, shuffling about like an only child on a road trip – he'd even brought snacks. “And how would that conversation go, Ollie? _Hello, yes – I'd like to report a politician missing. How long you say? Two hours. Sod off back to Coventry and see if he washes up in a canal.'_ They'd probably be pleased.”

“His polling with the constituency wasn't _that_ bad,” Ollie defended.

“Oh yes it fucking was,” Glen insisted. “He'd be beaten by a wood roach if one cleaned its feelers off and decided to run. Is there any chance he's actually in jail? Should we check there first?”

Ollie bashed his head against the headrest making the car skid a little on the ice. “And how's _that_ going to look? Us – searching for an MP down the lockup. That's a story all on its own – Glen! Malcolm'll kill us if we show up on his Twitter feed.”

“I hear he's got a new app that can make phones grow fangs.” Terry turned off the main road. Her driving was right on that irritating speed – too fast to grate but too slow to enjoy. It was like being ferried about by a civil servant – _oh wait_.

“We've got to start searching somewhere. Where _are_ we going anyway. Terry?”

“Miller's house. Obviously.”

“Why would he be at his house?”

“Most people are at their house, Ollie.” 

“Is that actually a house?” Glen asked, when they parked in Miller's driveway. “Because it looks like it came out of a cereal box.” It was overly cheerful and disconcertingly neat with all the hedges perfectly tripped and a lone tree too frightened to so much as sway with the snow. “There's a light on.”

*~*~*

“This is the kind of thing you get arrested for – pretty sure,” Ollie whispered, as they entered the house. They'd tried knocking but the door fell open on its own. Either Miller was a trusting droid or – or they'd have to think about calling Tucker. Ollie tilted his head, peering at the lock. Yeah, someone had shoved something sharp into that.

“Don't touch anything, Glen!” Terry batted his hands away from the door as he came up behind Ollie.

Glen bounced away from  _all_ the surfaces in response. “Sorry – I forgot to bring my burglar gloves!” he growled sarcastically. “He's clearly not here – so by definition we shouldn't be here!”

“Oh Glen – Glen _look_.” Ollie wasn't taking things quite as seriously. He'd found a rather awkward photo of Miller sitting on the hallway table. It was a hideous photo – presumably from his school days as it was two-thirds teeth. “How sweet.”

Weirdly, there weren't any other photos. Nothing at all. Most people had something of their family or beloved pets but Miller's house felt false, just like his fucking beaver-teeth.

“Creepy. Knew he was a weird one. You can always pick them, you know. It's the way they look. In the eyes... Crazy eyes. Like Glen's.”

“Terry – that's really not helpful,” Glen glared, with slightly crazy eyes.

“Take away his biscuits and his eleven cups of tea and wait for the complete and total system breakdown to occur.” Ollie was grinning.

“Don't you think it odd,” Glen ignored the two children he'd been saddled with, “that his car keys are still here. Look...” They were sitting on the table next to the grinning photo. “And his wallet. This – doesn't feel right. Terry – you can't go upstairs!”

“Why not?”

“What if – what if someone finds us in his house?”

“Why would anyone but us be looking for him on a weekend? You've got that crazy paranoia...”

“I am _not_ crazy,” Glen insisted, though he added, “not that anyone could blame me, working at DoSAC with you lot of...” once they'd started up the stairs.

*~*~*

Malcolm had no idea why but the coffee Sam made tasted better than his attempt earlier – which was utterly fucking perplexing because she'd made it with the same plunger and crushed up shit that he used. It wasn't even bloody possible. It was – it wasn't fair for a start. If he broke it down, the only rational explanation was that his inanimate plunger favoured his P.A. over him –  _its fucking owner!_ Who did it think saved it from the reject shelf, tucked it up in a bag and brought it home? Lovingly cared for it? Washed it by  _hand_ so that it didn't get cracked or tossed about with the general carnage of the dishwasher? Who?

“Who!”

Sam looked up from her fresh coffee. “Who  _what_ ?” It was snowing again and the coffee was providing more warmth than the brooding scot in the other chair.

Panic. Had he started talking to himself – outloud... Holy fucking Christ with a rosary! Act calm. “Who... is going to tell  _'Breakfast with Bertie'_ that Miller's taking a pass?” He covered, cleverly gesturing to the TV.

“You sent Jamie in.”

“Oh – yeah. Course.”

“Malcolm?”

“What?”

“Do you always talk to your coffee when I'm not around?”

There was no recovering from that so Tucker just drank the fucking thing.

*~*~*

“He's dead to me, the fucking bringer of the most boring apocalypse ever.”

Honestly, the poor aid that Jamie had found to deliver the sad news was terrified, pinned up against a wall with their folder clutched across their chest like some kind of shield. Jamie's hand was on it, pressing the plastic rectangle into the minion's chest. He wasn't even trying to be scary but it came off as _'murderous'_.

“Uh – okay,” the aid chirped, not quite sure what was going on. Normally cancellations were called in, not delivered by swearing-scottish-howler.

“Fucking 'flu' my ass,” Jamie took another breath and continued. “If he doesn't have H2N- _cunt_ now he'll have the nova of all infections come Monday – my cosmic-cock down his neck until he has real problems – like breathing. Poncy little – that's the problem these days. There's no _stamina_ left in the world. You think Vikings woke up on the eve of battle, sat up in their splintered floating toothpicks with their axes and horned fucking accessories (that are frankly far too fucking loud for the eleventh century); saw the cliffs of Dover rise out of the waves and thought, _'no – not today – I've got a bit of a tickle...'?_ No! Of course they fucking didn't. They wrapped horse intestines round their head and fucked off up the beach to kill some monks.”

“I'm -”

“If you want the treasure – fuck your way up the beach. That's how it works. Sand in your arse crack – crabs hanging off your balls. Little bit of kelp, you know, braided out of the nose hair. Miller – he's on a lilo in The Channel. He's not fucking any pilgrims.”

“Dan Miller isn't coming to the show?”

Jamie paused and took half a step back when he realised that the aid was plastered against the hallway like really panicked, sweaty wallpaper. “Nah, he can't make it. Sorry luv.”

Jamie evacuated the building and thrashed out Tucker's number on his phone.  _“Fucker didn' fuckin' show! You were right about that stupid cunt. Where the fuck is he then? He loves this kind of shit. Never seen him miss one boring pre-dawn love-up.”_

_'Calm down. You sound like a squirrel trapped in a pop-corn machine.'_

“ _I am calm. This is calm.”_

_'Did anyone question Miller's absence?'_

“ _Nah – at least I don' think so. Wasn' listening. Christ is that Sam?”_

*~*~*

Tucker was fighting to keep Sam away from the phone. She kept reaching over his shoulder, attempting to pry it out of his claws. She wasn't getting anywhere. “Would you please stop doin' that?” Tucker asked, almost too politely.

“Tell him!”

_'Tell me what...? Oy! Tell me wha? Yer can' ignore me jus' cause I'm a phone.'_

“Sorry Jamie – I've got another call.”

_'But-'_

That wasn't actually a lie. “Ollie?”

_'Terry.'_

“The fuck you doing with Ollie's phone? Yer not – you know – 'cause I'd need a few days alone with tha' information to process it.”

_'Miller's not in his house – all his stuff is here though. Wallet. Keys. Laptop. His phone's missing but I hear you've got that.'_

Malcolm hit himself on the forehead with his phone. Ollie and Glen were officially the worst secret agents from the very beginning of time. “Any sign of a struggle?”

_'This isn' Prime Suspect.'_

“Is there?”

_'No. It's all a bit OCD really.'_

“Keep looking.”

Malcolm hung up the phone and stared at it – deep in thought. He didn't realise that he was rocking back and forth on the couch very slightly – the closest he could get to pacing while sitting down. Part of him had been hoping to find a very fucked up Miller, sprawled on the floor, snoring and dressed to the hilt in drag. At least he could cover that kind of shit up and add it to his collection of blackmail. Missing. Missing was – well it wasn't helpful, for a start.

“What are you thinking?” Sam shifted closer to him.

“That maybe Miller really is missing,” he admitted. “Can't think bloody why though. He's got no reason to do it on his own and no one in their right mind would benefit from taking him. It doesn't make any sense.”

“His family has a lot of bad luck. Maybe he's not immune.”

“Bad luck.... _Bad luck_...” Tucker mulled that over. “There's no such thing as luck, good or otherwise.” He got up – paced – strutting in front of the fire. “I've got a file on Miller, yeah?”

“Of course but it's mostly filled with rubbish. As Ollie keeps saying -”

“A boring fuck, yeah I know. Is anyone really that boring though?”

“I don't understand – what are you suggesting? Malcolm? Don't go all silent on me. Malcolm!”

*~*~*

Sam followed him through the snow. It was heavy now, spiralling out of control, melting against her skin and re-freezing like a delicate glaze that she wiped away with her gloves. Tucker was a few steps in front, striding over the icy paths like a bloody snow-wolf. He looked sinister too, draped in an oversized, black trench coat that fanned out behind him. The grey scarf wrapped three times round his neck nearly covered his head. It wasn't so much that they couldn't catch a cab – there were plenty stalking them, slowing for a moment to see if they were interested before cruising by like sharks; Tucker liked to walk. By the time they arrived at his office, Sam knew that he'd have a plan.

Plan or not, the first thing Sam did was get the fire in his office going so that she could defrost.

Her lip curled in a smile. He looked utterly ridiculous. Though he'd successfully ditched his jacket, Malcolm had forgotten about the twelve feet of scarf around his neck. It dragged on the floor as he knelt in front of his 'Black Archives' and started digging around for Miller's file.

“It's my paranoia.” Malcolm started, arms deep in the cupboard. His claws latched onto something. He canted backwards, dragging out the hefty file. It landed in his lap. “I know a problem when I see one. I can feel my heart detaching from the aorta before contorting through my rib cage on the way out.” He licked his frozen fingers and started flicking through the binder. “It's this overpowering dread – like I'm the only one that can see the huge, fucking tidal wave arching up and we're all in its shadow. The whole stage has gone dark but it's fucking night outside and no one's noticed.” Flicking. Licking. Flicking again. “And everything's silent. It's just – _calm_. Soon it'll be noise and carnage but for a moment or two I get to experience pure terror.” There, his index finger slid down a page. “I'm a medium for disaster.”


	19. Chapter 19

“Uh chaps...”

“Chaps? _Chaps_... Glen, not a single Brit has used the word 'chaps' since the second world war and even then it was reserved for eighteen-hundreds throwbacks, perched in the corner of a gentleman's club, half asleep nursing a bottle of Brandy. Not even Brandy. S _herry_. Besides, Terry's not a bloke. Jesus I mean, you barely qualify yourself.”

Glen's cheeks flushed red as he stammered, shuffling about in the snow looking for a response sturdy enough to hurl back in Ollie's tiresome face. He was beaten to the mark by an impatient civil servant.

“Ollie!' Terry's shrill voice threatened to shatter a jagged layer of ice dangling from a street lamp. “Would you stop talking rubbish! We've got to focus. Focus is the key.”

“Do you live your whole life in recycled party slogans? Ow!” He recoiled when she whacked him sharply with her purse. “Blimey!”

They were all gathered in the narrow alleyway at the back of Miller's house. It was one of those unassuming patches of concrete with a few bins lined up and piles of snow collected against the neighbour's fence.

Ollie started laughing though it was unclear if it was simply his natural reaction to panic. “Focusing is not going to make Dan Miller's frozen corpse go away.”

“Don't you think it's a bit callous to refer to it as – well, you know.”

“A corpse? 'cause that's what it is, Terry – a fucking corpse. Mind you, he looks pretty much the same as he did before. Bit more colour in his cheeks. We could mount him to a bit of cardboard and wheel him out every now and then for press conferences. No one would notice the difference.”

Terry flinched at the repetition. “Can you stop saying, 'corpse'?”

“Well, what would you like me to call it? Remains, body, carcass, earthly-remnants, stiffy-”

“Stop already.”

“I've got an inbuilt thesaurus, Terry – I could go all day. Left over from the Hugh days – he only had one noun and a scattering of adjectives.”

Glen rubbed his freezing hands together. He was beyond panic and had already begun to plan how he'd spend the next twenty years in jail. They'd have central heating there, surely? It'd be an improvement. “Yes, it's one of your less-attractive qualities. Right up there necking with 'dreadful taste in scarves'. Tonight's another shocker. What do you call this one? Grass mated with goldfish scales? It's an abomination of yarn.”

Terry whipped her phone out, searching through contacts. She pushed it in Ollie's face, already ringing. “We've got to tell Malcolm.”

Ollie scampered away from the phone as though it were the sun and he a vampire. “I'm not bloody telling him. No – I don't want the phone – stop shoving the phone in my face! Glen – make Terry stop!”

Glen shrugged. “I'm a drunk throwback nursing Sherry.”

“Don't go all manky and soft – you were acting like a twat and I was rightly joshing you for it.”

“You were not. You were behaving like a prat.”

“A _what_?”

“Sell-aggrandising, pompous _fuck_.”

“No – I know what it means, you dozy-” _God what was the point arguing with a dinosaur over satnav directions?_ “- it was a _how-bloody-dare-you_ **what** not a _pardon, come again?”_

“I'll come again in a minute if we don't do something about Miller.”

“That is _literally_ the worse image I've ever had placed in my mind.”

_'Who ever the fuck this is, you better open your fucking mouth and speak or I'll track you down and snap your opposable thumbs off so that you can never use a piece of technology again unless you fancy txting with your nose, which'll be the only appendage I leave attached.'_ The phone shouted at them with a thick Scottish accent.

Glen pointed at the phone, which had started swearing so loudly they could all hear it. Ollie put his hand over the microphone and started panicking. “What am I meant to even say?”

“I'd start with, 'Miller's dead',” Glen replied, unhelpfully.

“Very-fucking-helpful.”

*~*~*

Malcolm Tucker didn't simply hang up the phone. No. He smashed it repeatedly against his desk making certain that the fuck up that called could  _feel_ his displeasure. “That's what'll happen to yer fucking head when I see you next,” he added, before finally ending the call.

Sam was calmly sipping tea and eating a biscuit, covering the secret files in a thin layer of crumbs. She barely flinched at the noise coming from his desk. “Problem?”

“Maybe...” he replied, staring at his phone and the new crack across its screen. “You were right, should've bought the Nokia.”

Tucker knew that he was supposed to feel some kind of flicker of sadness at the passing of his minister but honestly, Dan Miller was such a boring 2D fuck that the only thing Tucker felt was irritation. That manifested itself in an urge to tear apart another mandarin.

“Miller's not missing anymore.”

Sam looked up. “Oh well that's good.”

“Bloody dead, isn' he...”

“What?” She dropped a biscuit onto the file. It shattered into a billion pieces, like crunchy snow.

“You know,” Malcolm shrugged, setting his phone gently onto the table as a sort of apology, “a zombie in waiting. Part of realms of Hades. Compost for the BBC lawns. Dormouse-style.”

“One – that was insensitive, even for you. I realise that he wasn't the most likeable individual in your nest and didn't respond well to torrents of abuse but you still – Malcolm, are you listening to me or playing with your phone? Right – doesn't mean you can say things like that aloud.

“Two – if the people we're exposing have escalated to murder, we need to stop and have a think about this. We're obviously trampling over more than your reputation.”

“Stop _what_?” Malcolm lifted his hands in defeat. “We haven't really done anything yet.” Sam held up the stolen files they'd taken earlier. “Okay – a bit of light thievery but that can't be related 'cause the fucker was already dead.”

“How do you know?”

“Ollie said he was frozen solid. A Miller popsicle.”

“That's horrible.”

*~*~*

“Ollie? Ollie – Ollie what did he say? Ollie...”

Ollie wasn't sure what to do with the phone. He held it stupidly in front of him as though he'd been shot with a taser and the currents of high voltage electricity had seized his muscles together. He was even twitching slightly.

“Erm... He wasn't exactly pleased. Something about, _'fucker's a blackhole for my patience, dead and alive'._ He's sending Jamie over.”

“Oh _Christ_ Ollie! Why'd you let him do that?”

“Why did I – it wasn't like he asked for my opinion! It was mostly shouting.”

“It's going to be a Scottish festival of bollocking today,” Terry muttered, dialling another number.

“Who are you calling this time?”

“Jamie. Obviously,” Terry replied. “We can't just stand around oggling the corpse of a minister all morning. What if someone comes?”

Ollie blinked. “ _Body_ Terry, we agreed to call it a _body_ after you made such a fuss – or has the shock worn off?”

“Bit. Yeah. He does look rather peaceful though, don't you think?”

Well actually _no_. Not really. Not at all.

“Glen – what are you doing?”

“There's something in his pocket,” Glen muttered, bending down to pull the edge of Miller's coat open.

“I don't care if there's a squirrel in there!” Ollie grabbed onto Glen's arm.

Glen fought him off. “Don't grab at my arm! Holy!”

The only thing 'in' Miller's pocket was the hilt of a knife protruding out of his chest. Glen immediately slipped over on the ice, flailing backwards and taking Ollie with him – who he used as a human air bag. Terry lorded over them, already on the phone to Jamie.

“Not an accident then...” Glen trailed off.

“Of course it was an accident. Clearly he tripped, landed on a carving knife and then dragged himself into the alley.”

*~*~*

“They're going to have to call an ambulance. Then the press. Then the police.”

“In that order?” Sam asked.

Jamie had been called into assist and he wasn't pleased about it. Sam was trailing along behind him as he hung up from Terry and started bouncing about the corridors. He could feel a new vein popping out of his forehead from the stress of it all. He doubted it was particularly attractive. Not that it mattered. Obviously.

“Look,” he waved her off irritably. “I simply don't have time to deal with this. The breakfast show is about to start and you're friend, ball-less Lord Robinson is about to follow up on his disastrous radio interview. When I told you to keep them on a leash I didn't mean strangle them so hard that their eyes bulge out like a goddamn goldfish. It was like watching a Japanese horror film.”

“He's not _mine_ ,” she protested. “ _You_ are babysitting him while Jeff is off sick.”

“Exactly. _Yours_. Where the fuck is the Great and Powerful Wizard of Oz?”

“Julius? In his office listening to abstract-indy-pop. You're going to have to wait if you want to see him... He's in a right mood.” Sam added, when Jamie made to strut straight past her.

“Rules don' apply to me, darling.”

“Yes, they sodding do,” Sam snapped back, tossing a pen at him. It hit him between the shoulder blades, making him turn back on her. “Take a seat. Have a biscuit. I'll get you some tea.” She added quickly. “Or I'll have to book two body bags I none morning. That's over our allocation.”

“I don' want tea – I want Miller's cock on a plate, over-easy with some fucking French toast, if it's not too much trouble.”

Sam flicked her gaze up from her notes.  _'Behave!'_ she mouthed at him.

“See this?” he added, drawing an imaginary circle above his head. “It's a fucking halo and I polished it for you, my dear.”

“You know what you sound like? A crack head muttering crazy shit to themselves. Do you want me to make you a sign 'the end is near' so that you can wander about DoSAC?”

Sam had a knack for making Jamie's blood boil – she was too good a sparring parter. Mind you, she'd learned from the best. There was far, far too much Tucker in her now. “Go fiddle with the angry Vulcan or whatever it is you two do in there all day. I've got shit on ice to sort out.”

He vanished through a door and Sam couldn't be bothered to follow. 

 


	20. Chapter 20

Before Jamie made it out of the building he was cornered by a reporter who had unwisely picked Miller’s mysterious disappearance as a point of interest. Either that or he was still wafting around hoping for another lucky snap of Tucker grinning at his P.A. like a lovesick cunt. There wasn’t much Jamie could do about the latter so he decided to have a bit of a shout instead. He cracked his knuckles as the reporter honed in with the usual barrage of rubbish.

“That a, ‘no comment’ then? Where is he? Holed up in a needle den – dodging child support payments – or has he finally joined the welfare queue now that his career has shattered on the rocks?”

Jamie stalked the man from the Daily Mail into one of the towering glass walls so hard that his backside became a Macy’s display. “Firstly, you D-minus hack, Dan Miller doesn’t _have_ any children – unless you were referring to Malcolm Tucker in which case you and I both know that his ghoulish offspring haunt the hallways of your offices for shits and fuckin’ giggles. Pulling all the cords out of yer cameras. Fucking around a little with the spellchecker on your laptop. That’s why yer paper’s been such a fucking shit-storm of cockups for the last two centuries.

“Secondly, I don’t ‘ave to tell you where Dan Miller is because it’s none of yer fucking business. You’re not his P.A. I’m not his fucking P.A. And just between you and me, my over-easy, vlog-dependent little rodent, as I told them all earlier Miller is _dead to me_ for missing that fucking interview that I, personally, had to ex-foliate a lot of crucial hair follicles to get him into. It’s all around us – see – my hair carpeting the halls of this miserable institution until one day I’ll be left with a resident moon on my head like fucking Julius – the ‘all shining’ orb.”

The reporter did his absolute best to recover some dignity. A difficult task with Jamie’s balls practically rubbing against his leg. He was like a furious Scottish terrier yelping on repeat. “Are – are – are you saying that Dan Miller is gay?”

Ravines formed in Jamie’s forehead so deep that they could drown the Valles Marineris.

“No. _No._ ” Jamie peeled the reporter off the glass and wrapped his spiny arm around him. “I’m saying that he’s fucking dead. Dead to your story unless you want to print all yer papers with press plates from the 1700’s. I can see you down there now, latherin’ up in ink – your shrivelled digits matching your tiny, ruined cock from all the shit holes you’ve been sticking it in lately. Oh _I know_ you’ve been following people you shouldn’t and let me tell you, if they found out what I found out your desiccated pygmy cock will be the least of your troubles. Now, if you’ll excuse me I have a politician to lever out of a crack den and you have a story to plagiarise.”

Jamie felt better after his little shout. It always helped to clear the air – to practice on hacks. It wasn’t like they had souls. Jamie used to be one so he could vouch for the bottomless pit that existed in their chests. It was just a vacuum sucking in all the misery of the world which was excreted via the Weekend Edition.

He loathed the cold and wrapped his scarf around his neck three times before he embarked on the walk to Dan Miller’s house. What he found was a frightened pack of hyenas haemorrhaging evidence. They backed away from him as he approached.

“Beautiful fucking morning, don’t you think? Sky’s a beautiful cunt-grey. Nice even spread of pure blandness that has come to define our lives.”

“Hi, Jamie...” Glen half-raised his hand.

“Did Malcolm get the facts mixed up because you look like a fucking corpse, Glen.”

“ _We’re trying not to use the word, ‘corpse’-”_ Ollie started to reply before he was cut off by a miserable Glen.

“I’ve been standing here with these two for over an hour. Believe me I’ve heard every unsavory variant on that particular observation.”

“A fucking ice-corpse dug out of the permafrost on some Mongolian pass with hand sewn boots and _Mollivirus sibericum_ for fucking decoration.”

“Right. Not _every_ variation.”

“Where the fuck is he, then?” Jamie lost patience for sparring. “Did you stash him in a bin out back or am I going to have to fish him out of the lawn?”

“We have not touched him, Jamie,” Terry replied. “He is exactly as we found him.”

“Well, _almost_ exactly.” Ollie added. “Glen tripped over him trying to molest the corpse.”

“That is _not_ true Ollie. I don’t know why you insist on saying things like that.”

*~*~*

There was a genuine moment of humanity where, upon seeing Miller’s corpse, Jamie paused. It was only a flicker. The brush of wind against a candle. An instant later he’d knelt on the ground and carefully pulled back Miller’s jacket to reveal the knife protruding from his heart and sheets of frozen blood.

“Christ o’ fucking mighty...” Jamie narrowed his eyes at Miller. “He’s even smiling in fuckin’ death. Are we sure he’s not from one of those creepy wax exhibits ‘cause it looks like I could toss a match down there and he’d catch alight there’s so much plastic under his skin.”

“Jamie – what happened to the side of your face?” Ollie asked, leaning in to get a look at the fresh bruise that was making itself known under his cheekbone.

“What?” Jamie reached up to touch his face. “Oh tha’? Got so excited on a kill I walked into a sodding wall. The _fuck_ you want ter know for?” All three of them had backed away slightly – eyes full of fear. “Oh _come on_ not a literal kill you twats – I was tearing shreds of a Daily Stalker hangin’ about Tucker’s office. What, you think I skulk around suburban shit-shows like this and massacre stars from Days of Our Lives?” Jamie gestured to Miller’s corpse beneath them. “If I _was_ going to indulge in a bit of light murder I wouldn’t waste it on someone as fucking _dull_ as Miller.”

“You – _walked into a wall_?” Ollie wasn’t sure he could let that go. The image of it had his lips turning into a curl he was about to regret. “The Great and Powerful underling of Satan had an accident with a transparent wall...”

“Sorry to interrupt this extremely important discussion,” Terry stepped between Jamie and Ollie, inadvertently saving Ollie from the knackers. “But can we please try to focus on the issue at hand? The issue being Dan Miller. If we leave him here too long he might thaw.”

“Thaw? Terry – it’s minus-infinity out here...” Ollie muttered.

“No – the cyan orb has a point. You three-” Jamie jabbed his finger in their general direction. “Have yer been in his house, yeah, spewing up forensic shit everywhere – stomping about leaving bloody prints over the walls? Yeah. Fuck. Well then we’ll all have to fucking stay ‘ere.”

“Stay – for what?” Glen frowned.

“Fer the rozzers and their fuck-off blood hounds.”

“Jamie – who are you calling – Jamie! This is all _your fault_ Ollie.” Glen hissed.

“My fault? You’re the one who couldn’t cough up a decent insult on Miller when it mattered.”

“Are you trying to say that if I’d been more inventive with my swearing, Dan Miller might not have been murdered?”

“Well – I – _yes_.”

“HUSH!” Jamie snarled.

*~*~*

“There it is!” Sam called out from his office.

Malcolm waddled down the hallway carrying his weight in toxic cabinet filth. He dumped the files on the floor with the rest of the deluge he’d been picking his way through. “Well don’ keep us in suspense, darlin’. Try a bit o’ sound, yer know?”

She turned the sound on and the room filled with the breaking news story of the murdered MP found in the snow outside his house. Tucker paused, kneeling in the rug which he realised was two inches deep in crumbs and bits of torn-off limbs from previous kills.

“God, look at them...” He trailed off, motioning to the three shrivelled figures in the background. “They look like corpses waitin’ fer meat hooks. Especially Glen. Someone should hook him up to an intravenous and pump him full of food dye. Don’t hush me!”

Sam did anyway, waving him off as she turned the volume up. Another Scottish demon loomed into frame. Jamie proceeded to give a genuine performance.

“Cunt’s got the emotional range of a teaspoon...” Tucker muttered.

“Don’t be unkind. He’s trying – which is more than I can say for you. Aren’t you even a little bit sorry that he’s dead?”

“Honestly?” Tucker paused and gave it a second of truly deep thought. “No. He was a fucking boring fuck who’s just left a huge wagon of utter shit in my life. So no. No I don’t.”

Sam flicked the TV off and turned on her boss.

“Oh come on – the fuck you do that for? I was watchin’ an Oscar worthy performance - though I must say the standard's really slipped since the studios started purchasing their accolades in bonds. Now where are you going?” Tucker watched helplessly as his P.A. closed _and_ locked the door. She returned to the centre of his office where she began to pace – a habit picked up from him. He was certain that there were grooves worn into the floorboards by now leading straight to fucking hell.

“They _killed_ him, Malcolm.” Sam’s voice shook a little. “You can flit around and pretend with the others that it doesn’t bother you like some kind of mad butterfly but _I know_ that _you know_ what this means. Whatever it is that we’re getting close to – _whoever it is_ – that we’re stepping on they’ve got fangs. This isn’t about unflattering headlines of you and your P.A. any more-”

“I don’t-”

“ _Quiet!_.”

“Okay...” Malcolm gripped one of the files to his chest as a form of armour against the bloody terrifying look Sam was dishing out. Jamie was fucking right about her. She was forged in hell right along with the rest of them. When it came to smacking out a good talking to, she was right up there with his mother.

“If we keep digging this pit of skeletons up we have to be more careful. What if they come after you? I know you think everyone’s shitting themselves in your presence but real killers – actual criminals living their lives one bag of crack to the next – they’re not intimidated by you. Words can’t save you from a blade.”

There was an extended silence between them in which Malcolm prodded his cracked phone, shrugged silently and tossed the file he’d been clutching back to the floor. “We don’ even know for sure that Miller was killed because of _this_. Loads of people want to murder politicians. It might have nothing ter do with us.”

“What is it you’re always saying about Dan Miller?”

“He’s a fucking boring fuck.” Malcolm watched Sam’s face drop and he knew very well that she didn’t have to elaborate on that point. ‘Boring’ wasn’t usually a quality that inspired murderous rampage. “I mean there are some people that you want to mount their heads on spikes and others that you just can’t be fucking bothered with.”

“Then _why_ ,” Sam joined him on the floor amid the deluge of files, “are you digging through your secrets archives on him? What are you looking for – what do you think you know? If you don’t tell me then I can’t help you.”

Sometimes, very rarely, things wafted to the edge of Malcolm’s eyes that looked oddly like emotions. “I’d tell yer if I new.” Malcolm admitted. “There’s something familiar about Miller – like one of those scratch n’ sniff stamps. I’ve got a hint of shit and it won’t rub off.”

“Well we better find it fast before you pull a card out of the Community Chest that reads, _‘Go Directly to Jail’._

*~*~*

Terry drove everyone back to DoSAC which was a particularly frightening experience for Ollie who had to share the back seat with Jamie. He was tied to his phone, swiping his finger over the screen manically as he murdered digital representations of his fury. Every now and then he let out little groans of pleasure.

“So what do we do now?” Ollie asked, clearing his throat.

“Go back to work, I imagine – unless you’ve got a cruise lined up.” Glen replied, from the front. He had one hand on the dashboard, bolstering him with an extra layer of protection as the tyres slid over the icy road.

“Yeah. No. All right.” Ollie hissed. “I mean – don’t we have to start telling people that their minister is, oh – I don’t know – a frozen body? What’s the protocol for that?”

“There’s a whole file on this sort of thing,” Glen assured the younger man. “Believe it or not, people _do die_ while in service to the public.”

“Would you like me to send a memo out?”

“What – Terry… No. That’ll come off as insensitive.” Ollie replied.

Terry shrugged. “Just trying to be efficient.”

“Yeah...” The Scottish demon in the back piped up. “Because DoSAC is the fucking beacon of efficiency.”

“What _he_ said.” Ollie pointed at Jamie. “We could draft a letter. Give an announcement to the press. Bloody hell, that’ll have to be you, Glen. You’re the only one that can muster a face glum enough to give a ten second eulogy.”

“Not me. I have the weekend off. Going to plaster a wall.”

“You’re not going home, Glen. The world is ending. You’ve got to be here, in the shit of it like the rest of us victims.”

“Well, _I’m_ going home.” Terry insisted. “I’ll deal with Miller’s death through the appropriate channels on Monday between 9 and 6.”

“I’ve always wondered what it’s like to be you, Terry. How does it feel to have absolutely no empathy?”

“Very calming.”


	21. Chapter 21

“Julius...” Malcolm did his best to appear welcoming despite the fact that he was folded on the floor like an IKEA project amid towering piles of manilla folders that appeared to have grown from the fucking festering mess on the mat and surrounded themselves in a deluge of coffee, Fanta and Curly Whirly wrappers in the weirdest leaf litter since the Mesozoic.

A tribute banner to Dan Miller paraded across his muted TV screen like a fucking cross at an Easter festival. Some reporter was doing their best to rustle up a meaningful tear while cornering a small pod of concerned bystanders produced by the nearest 3D printer. Malcolm hadn’t seen this much enthusiasm for Miller since the reindeer incident. Politicians should die more often. It did wonders for popularity and Malcolm eked an extra morsel of joy from the situation knowing it was adding to DoSAC’s already fucked crime stats.

“Malcolm...” The ever-cheery albino avocado finally tottered in, peering over his heavy rims at the screen. “Very sad – tragic to see a young political star cut down in his prime. Miller was a pricey cut.”

“Oh come on… He was a fucking hair piece in a toddler fashion show and here you are, the shouty mother come to bask in the unnatural, manufactured beauty of your demonic offspring. Well the curtains are closed and the show’s fuckin’ cancelled – resigned to infinite repeats on daytime fucking – _oh that’s not even one of his quotes!_ ” Malcolm suddenly vaulted onto his knees and shouted at the TV. “I wrote that.” He badgered the screen mercilessly, before continuing. “Julius… I thought I’d find you decked out in fucking black robes carrying a half a tonne of rosary anal beads for-”

“Now now...” Julius lifted his hand, hoping to stop that train of abuse that was on the verge of derailing into heretical convulsions. “I’m sure I get the picture. You are always threatening to murder DoSAC employees when they vex your kittens but I did not expect you to carry through with a public execution.”

Malcolm’s vicious eyes lifted to Julius’ face with such heavy sarcasm he was surprised his eyelashes didn’t drop off. “I didn’t fucking kill the fucker. I don’t have a set of steak knives in my breast pocket or a rifle mounted over my desk. It’s not the fucking Mid West. This is _London_. The closest we get to violence is a body in the drink or a scrap over the vending machine. Even then the worst that could happen is a junior MP being chocked to death with a packet of Skittles leaving vibrant coloured shits in the reception area.”

“It was worth checking, Malcolm.” Julius picked up an unopened can of Fanta and decided to claim the beverage. He sniffed it first to make sure it wasn’t lace with Meth or the wings of angels. “There are some very arresting stories about your powers of darkness out there, Malcolm. The PM is convinced you have a sarcophagus stashed in the pantry. You know what they say. There’s no smoke without a raging pit of lava.”

“Yeah and a few fuck-off tectonic plates.” Malcolm muttered as he buttoned up his jacket. “You and me are going to get a- _fucking_ -long,” Malcolm insisted, doing his best to keep his voice calm. “Because I haven’t got the energy right now to polish off your bollocks and use them as snooker balls. Miller, the boring _selfish_ silicon prick has allowed himself to be slaughtered in public and now his problems are fucking with the remaining shards of my life.

“You know, it’s times like these that I miss Nicola Murray. At least she was a crazy cunt of badly dressed inconceivable shit whose long list of inadequacies included the inability to walk in a straight line. Not even the Elizabethan King of Spin himself could invent the Shakespearean tragedies comin’ out of her head. Half the fuckery that leached from her office was too outrageous for the tiny minds over at Landfill Express to put into print. Mind you,” his hiss turned to a snarl as he remembered to breathe, “then I recall that it was her bewildered, dying cries that set this whole fucking inquiry into motion in the first place and I’m overwhelmed with the urge to throttle her with that gawdy fucking imitation pearl collar she wears around her withering corpse. When I off her they’ll have to peel Nicola off the walls after I make plaster of her body parts and turn her fucking alarming hair into DoSAC’s doormat.”

“That is exactly why I know you had nothing to do with this,” Julius was genuinely enjoying watching Malcolm work off his aggression. He was literally bleeding sweat. “It lacked creativity. You’d have arranged Miller’s bits in the snow like that programme with the ice zombies and the illegitimate son that keeps dying. Nailed a few fingers to the mailbox. That sort of thing.”

Jesus, it was like talking to an enormous bald version of Ollie. “Yeah well, I’m off abstract art at the moment. Bad for maintain’ a stable mental state.” Malcolm continued manically sorting his files into piles. “Why _are_ you here? Was it simply to check that I didn’t butcher an MP or do you have an actual purpose in this world unrelated to idle irritation of well-meaning press manhandlers?”

Sam lingered at the door to Malcolm’s office. She’d been on her way back with another pint of coffee when she heard Julius lumber in. How that creature got through the front door without her seeing was one of the continuing mysteries of the universe.

“This _thing_ that you are looking for. I know what it is, Malcolm.”

Fucking Sam. She must have been telling on him again. Malcolm very nearly laughed – even if it was a sadistic, bitter version of happiness. “Julius, _I_ don’t fucking know what I’m looking for. Are you fucking bugging my mandarins or something? How could you possibly-”

“Malcolm,” Julius turned deadly serious. “I know. Now do you want to see what I brought with me or should I take a trip via the shredder on my way out?”

“And what are you? My fairy-fucking-godmother?”

“No, Malcolm. That’s your role. Think of me more as an oracle. Yes. I like to picture myself as one of those omnipresent deities – benign but tugging on all the right strings.”

“Like a fucking horrific orb spider with a web nested over the ceilings of parliament house. That’s what you are. A giant arachnid with a set of venomous prongs out your arse. Well – I can live with that.” Malcolm admitted. “As long as you don’t roll me up in those cobwebs for a snack. I won’t be part of your larder, Julius. I’m not a takeaway haggis.”

“You are not a prawn chip. Noted.” Julius replied, as he reached into his jacket and extracted a very slim file. “The first of several commandments.”

“Funny.” Malcolm flipped it open and then found all the breath ripped from his throat.

“Was I right? Am I the god of generosity?” He was so pleased with himself he was practically glowing.

“Chief boatman to the Underworld...” Malcolm agreed. “Sam – _Sam…_ You might as well come the fuck in if you’re gonna wait in the doorway like a fucking stalker. I know you’re fond of Julius but yer don’ need to shadow him for an autograph. He gives those out for free.”

Sam’s heels clicked across the floor. She set the tray on the floor instead of the table. It seemed a reasonable choice considering that’s where Malcolm had decided to set up his nest. She often wondered if she’d been hired by the PM to supervise the office and prevent situations exactly like this from arising.

“So – what’s in the folder?” Sam asked, perching on the couch near the boys.

Malcolm was in a state of shock. He looked like a recovering alcoholic that had just been offered half-price Smack. “Simon Weir – our head fuck boy on the committee...”

“Mmm?” Sam sipped the cup of tea she’d made for Malcolm.

Malcolm turned the folder around so that she could see the photo. “Ringing any fucking alarm bells?”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Sam discarded the teacup and reached for the folder. “Weir and Miller have the same mother?”

“Different name. Same fucking person. I was _right_. The boring fuck has a past and it’s full of fucking mutants and heresy.”

“That is correct, Malcolm.” Julius nodded, leaning toward the tea tray to fish through the biscuits. Honestly, half the time he only skulked over to steal food from the mad stick insect. “Simon Weir and Dan Miller are half-siblings on the mother’s side. Miller’s father was killed by a shady money laundering racket. The mother was taken into witness protection and the child, Dan, fostered out to a local boarding school. Simon was born a few years later and was unaware of his brother until some time in the mid 90’s where a paperwork error reunited the pair.”

“How the fuck did you find this, Julius? It’s layered in several levels of fuck-off secrecy acts. Retracted so far up the arse I’m surprised you didn’t have to fish it out with a skewer.”

“Officially I’m just here for the tea, Malcolm, and the pleasure of your P.A.’s company.”

“Officially you’re a fucking shadow master.”

And that was as close to a compliment as Tucker could get.

*~*~*

Deep in the evening, Malcolm had retreated to his house and entrenched himself on the couch where he nursed a tumbler of port while Jamie mucked around with his saxophone.

“Yer snap any of those keys off and I’ll be forced to refashion a replacement out o’ yer neck bone.”

Jamie smirked. “Oy. You owe me after today, shepherding around those DoSAC off-cuts. Cleaning up bodies isn’t part of my fucking list of preferred character attributes – nor are arty-wishy-washy-smiley-fucking press spots on a Saturday. You know what I like to do on Saturdays? Rip legs off fucking beetles. Drink myself into an oblivion with some pleasant Celtic melodies and sometimes, if I’m havin’ a real treat, I might order a bit of Chinese ‘cause I enjoy the cries of small animals boiling ter death in their own miserable juices.”

“You okay, Jamie? You’ve got a vein – in yer neck – looks a bit like a clot forming.”

“Don’ you start! I’m ten years younger than you and _I’m the one_ knocking on death’s door every other fucking day with a sick note. How do you survive anyway? Is it all just curses and spite or is there some actual fucking blood in those veins? None in yer cock, obviously, or it’d be that P.A. of yours fooling around with your instrument, not me.”

“Careful...”

“Yer might as well, lad.” Jamie started polishing the saxophone with his sleeve. “The two of you have been accused of it in the Mail so it’s fact whether it’s true or not.”

If possible, Malcolm sank further into the couch with a distant rumble in his eyes. They were clear and grey, staring off into the corner of his room. “Don’ - don’ you say that.” He muttered quietly.

Jamie paused. There was something odd about Malcolm lately and it was giving him this growing ball of dread in his chest cavity. “Seriously.” And he was. “Should I be worried about you and this lass?”

“What? No...” Tucker dragged his eyes back to Jamie and found him gazing with an alarming amount of clarity. “Sam is my P.A. and that is _all_.”

“For a master of spin you really are a terrible liar. You fancy her and she fucking fancies you which is giving me this pre-coronary.”

Malcolm massaged his neck to stop any of his tendons snapping free. “Look – can we not talk about this?”

“No, I think we _need_ to talk about this.” Jamie set aside the instrument and shifted forward on the opposing couch. There was a light jazz track in the background and the stink of cheap coffee in the air and a whiff of Jamie’s previously smoked cigar. Malcolm’s poor excuse at a fire had started to die threatening to asphyxiate them both. What a pleasant and welcome death that would be. Maybe he could throw himself in as kindling to lighten things up. “What are your intentions?”

“What – are – my – _intentions_?” Malcolm nearly choked on a laugh that had lodged itself in the back of his throat. “What is this – a BBC fucking melodrama? Is that wank-off Darcy about to enter stage right? Because if he is I’d like a right word with him about all these fucking expectations he’s left an entire generation of women with. Miserable fucking...”

“Well if he did you’d be fucked because he’s got a nice cut on him. Good hair. Money pouring out of his ears.”

“He’s an English cunt.”

“And you’re an ailing Scottish shit. I’d say, an’ this is just a highly educated guess, that he has the edge over you. Answer the question.”

“None. I have _no_ intentions, Jamie.”

“God. Yer don’t, do you?” Jamie wasn’t sure what to do. There was something seriously wrong with Tucker lately and a band-aid of liquor wasn’t going to plug it. “Now I know you like to do all your fucking in the Hilton penthouse but the fact that you’re _not_ _fucking anything_ is a worry. Are you actually fucking dying or did it finally drop off from something nasty yer picked up down the metro?”

“I can’t touch her, Jamie. When this shit flies off the fan it’s going to obliterate everything it touches. That is not going to include Sam – right – I’ve got her covered in paint sheets an’ don’t you go ripping them off.”

“With no fucking respect, I don’ think that’s a very realistic approach.”

Malcolm started to twitch. There weren’t many topics off limits to Jamie but Sam was right on that line. The only reason he entertained any banter was out of some misplaced camaraderie built on a mutual affection for inspired cursing. “An’ you? What about your intentions?”

“Oh for fuck’s sake, let it go, it was once – years ago. We were wearing the same suit, remember? No, you probably don’t.” Jamie realised. “You were pretty fucked that year. What is it with yer and Christmas parties? I used to think tha’ you only came to terrorise a few frightened MPs but I now I realise you were only in it for the cake.” Malcolm was watching him in silence which was a terrifying state. Oh yes, he liked to talk bullshit twenty-four hours a day as long as none of it turned in his direction.

“I – I...” Malcolm started to speak and then found a curl of vulnerability rear its head. “All right. I’d like ter have intentions but I don’t. Yer happy? The honest fucking truth. Ain’ that a shocker. Just because she doesn’t ‘ave the good sense to steer clear of me doesn’ mean I’m going to let her run aground on a reef mad of sawn-off-fuck.”

Jamie folded his arms sternly across his chest like a concerned parent. “Actually no. Unless you get your own head sorted out this entire thing – _whatever this thing is_ – will end in a nightmare an’ I have no _intention_ of you spending weekends cryin’ on my couch.”

“It’s more complicated than that an’ you know it. Sam thinks she understands what she’s signin’ up for but she doesn’t. Not really. This thing – the cascading shit with the inquiry, it’s going to go all the way to the wire and Weir will do everything within his maddeningly wide net of power to fuck with everyone that’s even breathed on me. If he thinks, even for a moment, that Sam is more than a fleeting distraction he’ll take her and slice her into fucking bits that we’ll find in the god damn snow. It’ll be a full fucking art exhibition.” Malcolm was digging his nails into the couch, fidgeting nervously.

“Too late, you stupid cunt,” Jamie replied. “You’ve got to take this fucker down in a hellfire – sooner rather than later.”

“I know – _I know_...” Tucker murmured.

“You’ve allowed this to spiral into crisis. If I find a madman fucking loose in my attic I’m going to sever all his limbs and hang them from the power lines out front.”

“You don’t have an attic, Jamie. You live in the walls of parliament house. And what did you do to your face ay – get it stuck in a slamming door?”

“Walked into a fucking wall.”

“A wall? What – did it fold up on you in a different dimension?”

“Drop it. I’m not ‘ere to talk about my spacial awareness issues. We’re here ter set you up on Tinder. Give us your phone!”

*~*~*

“It’s Sunday, Sam. The fuck you doing ‘ere?” Malcolm paused at his office door, jacket hung over his shoulder as he peeked in to find his P.A. draped over the couch, shoes on the floor, cushions walled up around her with a notepad in hand. She was watching the news on his TV where further tributes were pouring in for Dan Miller and he was pretty fucking sure she had an ear-bud in one ear, moonlighting with the BBC breakfast radio.

“Keeping an eye on things,” she replied casually, without looking up. “Your favourite chew toy over at DoSAC made a lovely mess earlier. I’d have sent you to clear it up but honestly, what’s the point? He’ll only trip over a vat of Jila mints on the way back into the building and cause a cascade capable of consuming the entire main road. Then your transport minister will have a fresh nightmare.”

Malcolm would have applauded her on the extended pun but his coat had an unravelling thread that his OCD demanded he pick at. Added to that, Sam must have known that he’d been off with Jamie last night. It’s the only reason he’d be in late on a Sunday. “Hacks all behaving themselves?”

“Actually they’re in fine form. Courting sympathy plays well. There was even a replay your favourite reindeer special. If you stick it around I’m sure CNN will run it again.”

“Fucking cunt fuckers...” He closed the door with a hiss.

“Irony is, Miller could run as PM right now and he’d win. A corpse – propped up with duct tape and Ollie reading his lines through a loud speaker.”

“Well thank-fuck he’s dead. Can you imagine how dull our lives would be with Miller at the helm? Tom – well Tom is a first order psychopath, grown in a lab with extra sets of eyes and a few missing fingers,” he had to stop while Sam giggled into her tea, “but at least he’s good for a bit of sport – a few polaroids of hair raising blackmail. I’ve still got that set from last November. You remember?”

Sam was grinning wickedly over the rim of her cup. “Yes, of course. The PM was so terrified he sent you a birthday cake that year. Everyone thought it was terribly sweet. They didn’t know he was buttering up your silence with sugar.”

“The way to my black fucking heart of coal. Fuck, you’re right. There are the shitting reindeer sticks again!” He gestured brutally at the screen. “Shit like that. It was a fucking joke because I was bored. The son of a bitch was in his office filtering through identical selfies of himself. Thank fuck none of the interns ever showed him how to use a fucking app or we’d be smothered in mountains of digital Millers. I’d have to kidnap a Russian and have the whole fucking network purged.”

“I’m not watching breakfast TV to see how Miller’s death is playing in the press,” Sam admitted, setting down her drink.

Malcolm’s curiosity piqued. He laid his jacket over the pack of is chair and sauntered over, standing opposite his P.A. with a mandarin. “No?”

“No...” She admitted. “I was up all night thinking about Julius’ revelation. If Miller and Weir are half-brothers, what was Miller playing at? Either he was a truly dull individual, as you imagine and he was over at DoSAC purely living out his ego-fuelled dream to become PM. The trial was useful in that he usurped Nicola Murray but your demise would be a hindrance. Even if he’s half as stupid as you imagine, he’d have to know that any kind of fatality near your person would cast a shadow over DoSAC. He’d never see the sun again.”

“What’s yer fucking point?”

“Well, consider he was working _with_ Simon Weir instead to engineer your downfall. I’m prepared to accept that Miller is a masterful liar who has had us all on a string. Just – bear with me.” Sam insisted, as Malcolm started to scoff. “Why would Weir have him murdered? It doesn’t make any sense. The only person with motivation in that situation to remove Miller from the picture is you.”

“I didn’t fucking kill him.”

“I know that,” Sam replied quickly. “But that’s what it looks like. What if that’s what Weir _wanted_ it to look like?”

“Weir killed his own half brother to frame me? We’re not in a crime novel, Sam. This is real fucking life.”

Sam stood up and faced her boss even though she was half a foot shorter. “Listen to me,” she whispered. “You _destroyed_ Weir’s life when you took down his father. Have you ever lost _everything_ you love? Do you understand what that does to a person?” Sam had not expected to see a flicker of darkness wash through Malcolm’s eyes. He _had_ been to that place, she realised. There were chasms in his life that she knew nothing about but every now and then she wandered to the edge of something he’d worked hard to hide from her. “All right. Keep a hold of that feeling,” she searched his eyes, “and remember that’s what you’re up against.”

_Knock. Knock. Knock._

They turned in unison.

“Who the _fuck_ knocks?”


	22. Chapter 22

“Aren’t you going to get that?” Sam asked, bewildered by Malcolm’s sudden inability to process basic information. He was like one of those new computers IT had put in… Nothing on the screen but their fans were in overdrive going a million bloody miles an hour to stop the core entering meltdown. That was Tucker in a nutshell. A nuclear reactor built on a fault line next to a mining operation run by North Korea.

H e still hadn’t moved.

“Uh – yeah. ‘course...” Tucker frowned and stepped away from his P.A. He’d been rather blind sighted by the interruption. In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time someone had found the balls to knock on his door. There was an invisible sign hanging on the outside that read, _‘Fuck off or have your limbs fucked off’_ to warn  brave carbon units away but whoever this was knocked again as Tucker reached the handle. The steel was as cold as his mood.

“Can I _help_ yo u...” Malcolm trailed off immediately – abandoning his usual ire for an infinitely more professional and rigorously filtered version of himself. “Officer?”

Sam’s head snapped around  as a police constable poked his head in.

“Morning to you, sir.” The PC began, carrying his hat under his arm. “Security downstairs let me in and directed me to this office. Are you Malcolm Edward Tucker, Director of Communications for Her Majesty’s government?”

“I am,” Malcolm replied, not entirely sure why the back of his throat resembled the Sahara. He hadn’t done anything of note. _Well_ hadn’t done anything _lately_ that could explain the  official visit unless the police had lost a politician and thought the body parts might be buried in his office. _Oh…_ Oh _fuck_. Fucking fuckity _fuck_.

“Are you all right, sir?”

“Fine. Fine. Would you like to come in? Have a seat. Have a _mandarin_ – I’ve got loads.” _Too_ much, Malcolm… His best impression of cordial behaviour was freaking the PC out so he dialled it down a notch. “A seat is probably better. We have those. _What?_ ” He hissed the last bit at Sam, whose eyes had narrowed from across the room.

The officer wasn’t quite sure what to make of – anything – really.  “Act ua lly, I was wondering if I could have a word with your personal assistant. A Ms Sam Cassidy if she is – ah, Ms Cassidy?” The PC turned to the woman approaching, without shoes, from the depths of Tucker’s office.

“That’s me,” she confirmed. “Is there something I can do for you?”

Sam’s manner was  _much better_ , Malcolm  noted . She was a pro when it came to dealing with people in unforeseen circumstances. Malcolm, well, his natural reaction was to storm in and pulverise anything with a pulse,  turn the dust into chalk and pen a warning for others on the nearest wall.

“These are routine questions,” the PC continued. “And though you are under no obligation to answer I will be required to invite you down for a formal interview at the station should you fail to comply.”

“Now wait on a m-” Tucker protested, attempting to step in front of Sam but she pushed him away discreetly with a firm hand.

“No, it’s okay. I do not mind. You may continue.”

“If you prefer, Ms Cassidy, we can conduct these questions somewhere more private.” The PC glanced deliberately at Tucker who had developed a twitching vein.

“No,” she repeated. “He will be all right, won’t you...” Her sharp gaze met his and Tucker found himself compelled to back off.

T he PC closed the door to keep their conversation private from the corridor outside  then all three of them settled on  a pair of couches. Tucker and Sam on one, the PC facing them on the other. He glanced at the paperwork strewn over the floor but made nothing more than a passing nod of interest to it.

“Is it usual,” he began, “to work here on a Sunday?”

Sam nodded. “Oh yes. Politicians do not take the weekend off and so neither do we. Mr Tucker keeps an eye on their activities and I keep an eye on his  tea and coffee.”

“And were you here this Saturday passed?”

“Part of it, yes.”

“Friday night?”

“She was with me...” Tucker reached over, taking Sam’s hand and moving it to _his knee_.

Sam’s first thought was  _that is a lie_ swiftly followed by  _what the Jesus-fuck?_ Neither of those  thoughts did anything to calm her nerves and all she could do was thank the layers of caked foundation covering her blush.

“For the _whole_ evening.” Malcolm added, as the PC made notes,  in case there had been any level of doubt to his meaning.

“Ms Cassidy?”

_Shit. Shit. Shit._ “Yes.  _Malcolm_ ,” she dropped formalities deliberately, “and I left together  in the early afternoon  and returned to his house. Why?”

“These are routine questions,” the PC assured her, unconvincingly, “in relation to the death of Dan Miller. I can see by your activities that you are aware of his sudden death yesterday.”

“He is one of my ministers,” Tucker nodded. “We are in the process of monitoring the media and managing the reshuffling of internal jobs following his tragic death. That is the main focus of our activities this morning.”

Sam was genuinely proud of Tucker’s ability to answer questions without cursing. Contrary to popular opinion, he was a man of infinite restraint. When he unleashed hell, it was  by choice.

“We are treating this sudden death as suspicious. Do either of you remember the last time you saw Dan Miller alive?”

“At DoSAC, in his office a few days after Christmas. I asked him to attend a news interview wearing antlers to up the Christmas cheer which he subsequently _did_.”

It would have been hilarious if it wasn’t so serious. “I have not seen him since he appeared to testify in the Goolding inquiry. We did not speak. I was a member of the audience. I can check the date for you  but it was prior to the  aforementioned Christmas presentation.”

“And how would you describe Mr Miller as a minister?”

A thousand thoughts ran though his mind, none of which he was allowed to voice. Wildly entertaining, vividly perfect puns lived and died without being heard. “ Diligent,” Malcolm settled on. “Dedicated. Docile. Deliberately determined to make a difference to the day-to-day of his department.” He left out Miller’s other notable adjectives.  _Dull. Delusional. Dangerous. Dubious…_ “To be honest with you, sir-”

“I hope all our dealings have been _honest_...” The PC eyed him suspiciously.

“Well – yes – of course… Turn of phrase.” He cleared his throat. “Dan Miller is of a rare breed. He showed up for his meetings, read the script and generally got through the day without offending anyone or creating a new story.” Malcolm noticed Miller’s face on the TV screen beside them. “This is the first time I’ve been called in to deal with anything unplanned related to Miller. Tragic. Utterly _dire_.” Sam was glaring at him again.

“And have there been, to your knowledge, any outside threats made to him either in person or via external sources? Threatening phone calls, emails – suspicious letters?”

“Nothing beyond the usual constituent mayhem – nothing that that his team felt compelled to report to you,” he amended. “Death threats are a part of our world, sir but there is a difference between the usual crazies and a serious threat. Miller did not receive any credible threats, as far as I know.”

T he carefully prying questions continued throughout which Malcolm continued to hold  Sam’s hand, stroking his thumb over her knuckles in a very convincing gesture that left her just as confused as the PC. Eventually, the constable had gone as far as  he dared without issuing  a formal invitation and excused  himself with a final, bewildered look at the row of mandarins . Malcolm politely closed the door and then neither of them moved or said a word until they heard the car leave.

“Jesus Malcolm!” Sam shoved him hard in the chest – so hard he landed against the door in an awkward sprawl. She wasn’t even sorry and turned on him again. “What were you thinking? You _lied_ to a copper and you made _me_ follow you into the _lie_.”

“Are you serious?” He hissed back, keeping his voice low. He pried himself off the door and folded his arms protectively across his chest in case she came for him again. “He was after _you_ for Dan Miller’s murder. I did you a fucking favour.”

“By giving me an alibi?”

“Yes. By giving you a solid as fuck alibi for the most likely time in which Miller was killed. Where were you?”

“At home.”

“Alone?”

“Peter’s in Paris for a conference so yeah, alone. Unless you count my cat.”

“Exactly. You’ve got all the same motives I have, Sam. A smart man, which Weir certainly fucking is, would go after you, not me. The quaint little slanderous bit of spin the press have been running all week backs us up. If we were together, they can’t touch us. Admit it. It’s fucking perfect.”

“Unless they think we both did it – together.”

“Well-” Actually, Malcolm didn’t have a way out of that one.

“Precisely. We’re going to have to strengthen this alibi you’ve gone and fabricated Malcolm because if we’re called before another inquiry I couldn’t tell them jack shit about your house beyond the living room.”

“Bollocks...” Malcolm felt that vein in his neck returning. “Who are you calling?”

“Your pet. If they haven’t been to see him, they’ll be on their way there shortly. I’m giving him a heads up that you and I are apparently a not-so-secret item so he doesn’t do anything stupid when questioned – like choke on his coffee.”

“Sam – _Sam_...” His tone shifted into something softer. “I’m sorry.”  And he looked it. Malcolm’s pale skin was nearly white. “I panicked. That was – out of line.” Well there was a fucking understatement. He’d fabricated an affair with his P.A. and if that wasn’t crossing a professional line, he wasn’t sure what was.

She wasn’t exactly angry with him. “Look, it was a good idea but all it’ll do is buy us some time. You realise that… We need to slam the inquiry shut before this murder investigation gets going. They can never pin us with Miller’s death because we didn’t do it – Weir knows this but all he has to do is paint you as a monster in the eyes of the board to prejudice their ruling. They want to pile the collective weight of sin on your shoulders. By the time you make your closing statement there won’t be a shred of credibility left. We’re going to fight this, Malcolm.” She promised him. “Whatever that might entail. I won’t let them drag you under.”

* ~*~*

“ _Yer and I are ‘aving further discussions about this at a later date...”_ Jamie hissed down the phone at Tucker.  Malcolm allowed him a few courtesy minutes of abuse before he hung up and nodded at Sam. “Right, I’m fucking ready. You ready?”

Sam lingered in the doorway of his office carrying her handbag. “I can safely say  _no_ ,” she replied. Sam was not, in any way, prepared for the shitstorm they were about to orchestrate  or for the toxic fallout that came after.

Malcolm didn’t look ready either. He’d bee n pacing around his office for fifteen minutes, finding endless tasks with absolutely no relevance.

“Can we please just get this over with,” she insisted. “Think of it as your opus of spin.”

H e wasn’t even thinking about the papers. Malcolm was  preoccupied with the notion that he’d have to actually let another human soul into parts of his life that he’d roped off for safety.  There was a reason he kept people at a distance. It was better. Just – just fucking  _better_ .  Sam was one of the few things he hadn’t fucked up yet and here he was, about to pull the safety cord  on a parachute folded by a blind man.

“And remember to smile at least once,” Sam nudged him, “or they’ll think I’m there under duress.”

“Gosh, I wonder how they might arrive at that conclusion.”

Tucker wasn’t swearing properly and Sam found the censored version of him unsettling. Maybe that’s what happened when he was truly stressed. He tapped out of his second language.

* ~*~*

“What do you think Tucker is doing right now?” Glen asked, trapped behind his desk along with the rest of the office mediocrity. He was just another shade of grey, blended into the lamp, desk, chair and pile of manilla folders that had developed an alarming lean since he’d piled them on the edge of his table. He’d placed the bin beneath in the off-hand chance they tumbled in. He had about as much intention of looking through them as a cockroach did of space exploration.

“ _What do I think Malcolm is doing?_ ” Ollie mocked Glen’s absurd comment. “I don’t have a chip implanted in my ear that feeds me information from the netherspeare whenever he thinks hateful thoughts in my direction. There’s no tracking system or inter-cranial email system set up.”

“At a _guess_ , Ollie. No need to be such a twat about it.”

“I don’t know – invading Poland? I’m not a, ‘twat’ I’m just _realistic_ about my prospects – which aren’t good considering we’re under investigation for Ticke l’s much prayed for demise. Then there’s the tiny issue of our boss’ recent assassination to attend to. I’ve got paperwork for miles. You know the shit has really hit the fan when Terry’s dragged herself in on a Sunday. I didn’t think that was possible for public servants. I thought it’d make their wiring melt or explode or _something_. ”

Glen was still stuck back on ‘murder’.  “Oh yeah – and what motive do we have to kill  our dreary friend ?”

“He’s the annoying prat that makes our lives a misery? One day with Miller is enough to make anyone consider irrational violence. Or rational, carefully considered violence...”

“That’s probably not something you should admit to in court.”

“In court...” Ollie was laughing, dragging his chair in closer to the desk. It was an object completely mismatched to his size. He was a praying mantis perched on a pin head, fighting for grip. “We’re not living The Bill, Glen. This isn’t one of your day time soaps or a Netflix binge. One of our ministers _died_ and  like it or not it was us who found him. At his house. In the fucking snow with a knife _this big_ poking out his chest. We had a genuine reason to be there, didn’t we? Miller’d gone and bollocksed up an interview.”

“But that’s not what happened, is it, Ollie? Not exactly. _Exactly._ ” He added, when Ollie lifted his hands in resignation. “And it’s subtle discrepancies like that which the prosecution use for twine to hang you with. Good twine, too. None of that shit from our cupboard. I tried to hang a perfectly simple Christmas decoration with it last week and it snapped the moment I taped it to the ceiling. Hadn’t even let go of it. Bloody cheap rubbish. Like the people who work in this office.”

“All right. Calm down.” Ollie lowered his hands back to the table. A disgruntled Glen was more vexing than a compliant one. “We’ll go over this one more time. Get our stories straight oh _fuck_ you’ve gone and jinxed us. Malcolm’s calling me. Probably wants to know if my liver’s ready to harvest. _Malcolm?_ ”

“ _Right. Ollie – we’re sending over the minister for moving useless shit about.”_

“ _The Minister for Transport?”_ Ollie  translated, despite barely containing his utter contempt. _“Is that the best you can do for a replacement? Don’t we have another waxed box we can paint a few eyes on? Nobody’d be able to tell the difference.”_

“ _Ha ha that’s very fucking hilarious coming from a twisted cheese snack but the Honourable Minister is the only tool left in the box with one good eye and a spine that hasn’t folded back over itself so many times that it resembles a theme park attraction. I can’t unpack any of the other ministers without the kiddies screaming so play-a-fucking-long, yeah, and find him a milk carton to sit on so that he’s at the right height when I come over to breathe down his neck. Now fuck off.”_

“Fucking off...” Ollie muttered at the phone, long after Malcolm had hung up. “He’s in a mood again.”

“He’d hate this,” Glen said, prodding his pile of folders with the edge of his pen. “Transport is one of Julius’ goons. Either his strings are being pulled or he’s got nothing better to offer up.”

“I thought we grew ministers in the basement? You know – beds of shit and body parts liquefying in the dark until heads pop up.”

“Of course not. That would be _efficient_.”

“Oy, where are you going?”

“Do get my fucking chair back.” Glen snapped. “Been waiting since Nicola left, haven’t I? Still my bloody chair, isn’t it.”

“And what’s Paul going to sit on?”

“He’s own severed head for all I care. Though I think Malcolm was serious about the carton.” Glen replied, slamming the door. The vibration nudged his pile of files directly into the bin.

*~*~*

“Are you really going to follow through with Julius’ request on the appointment of Paul Ryder? He seems a little...” Sam fished for a word to describe the maelstrom of weariness surrounding the Minister for Transport.

“The North Sea. It’s just _there_ , like Ryder and occasionally bits of it freeze – crack apart and get in the way of shipping lanes. Well, now a big fucking chunk is about to float over to DoSAC and obstruct a few very deserving people. Miller might have been boring but Ryder’s a toddler in an abattoir.” Malcolm passed over his jacket for Sam to mind as they got into the car. Their driver was always the same – the only one who agreed to transport the scariest fucking human in the world around. As the doors closed, it started to snow again.

“Whether it was your intention or not, you’ve made Julius very happy.”

“Don’ say things like that,” Malcolm snapped. “You’ll give me indigestion and I’m already struggling after the meal I made of Ollie earlier.”

“Ollie’s more of an ordoeuvre.”

Malcolm lifted his head and cracked a genuine smile as their car pulled away.


	23. Chapter 23

“Is he here?”

“Bloody better be fucking ‘ere or I’ll snap his arms off at the elbow and melt them down into Scottish bullions.”

“I doubt that qualifies as a plan,” Sam muttered into the folder she was perusing. “He’s not worth much as dead weight unless there’s a bounty out on him that I don’t know about. Which is unlikely,” she added, “because I have a list.”

“Ah now that depends on who ask,” Malcolm pointed out. “There’s a queue salivating shit at the prospect. Jamie has ruined nearly as many lives as me.”

“Are you two keeping score? Oh god...” Sam rolled her eyes so hard she nearly dropped the folder. “It’s not some kind of pseudo-sexual game that you two get off on, is it? No actually, don’t answer that – no – don’t even suggest an answer with your eyebrows. I’m not looking at you.”

“One has to pass the time...”

Sam exhaled sharply with something that ghosted close to disapproval. She didn’t quite understand the relationship those two had but she presumed it shared aspects with the devil and his demons. “Careful with that one, Malcolm. If you create a nightmare it might come looking for you one day.”

“Nah...” He brushed her off. Jamie was tame with a good, thick leash. _Malcolm frowned._ That sounded wrong even in his head.

He returned his attention to Sam. Their pleasant banter was a decoy – a deliberate way to avoid the pressing issue – namely the approach of Tucker’s house through the car window. He was watching the streets as they passed by, nervousness rising in his blood forming bubbles until he feared he’d end up with the fucking bends. Sam didn’t look much better. She became intensely focused when she was nervous and at present she was staring at the page so fiercely her eyes were about to wear it out.

Then the inevitable. The car pulled to a stop and the driver nodded his head. They were here. No escape now.

“Shall we, then?” Malcolm asked.

Sam closed her folder and slipped it into her bag. “Your move...”

And so it was.

Tucked exited the car first and then turned around, holding the door open for Sam who had shuffled across the seat to exist from Tucker’s side of the car. She offered up a shy smile at his gentlemanly behaviour and he closed the door behind her in an unusual display of chivalry. The car drove off, leaving them all alone amid the softly falling snow. They didn’t say anything but Tucker did exactly what they had discussed and placed his hand gently on her back while they made their way toward the house.

“Are you _sure_ he’s out there?” Sam whispered, when they neared the door. “I didn’t see him.”

“You won’t see him,” Malcolm assured her. “He’s a fucking pro.”

All of a sudden they’d run out of path and they were at the door. Malcolm fumbled for keys, missing the lock on the first attempt. Sam would have laughed if the whole situation wasn’t built on such dire foundations. It certainly wasn’t what she’d envisioned, if she’d ever admit to envisioning _anything_.

The door opened. Malcolm hadn’t stepped in as he normally would. _Oh_. He was waiting for… Right. This was her bit.

*~*~*

“Jesus _Christ_ the Dead Sea dries up faster than this! I might as well extract my organs and put them in Canopic jars.” Jamie hissed under his breath, propping the camera up on the branch of the partially frozen hedge he was hiding behind. Was there no end to this cringe-fest of a fucking nightmare that he was being forced to endure? Honest to _fuck_ he’d never felt sympathetic nervous dyspepsia before but he had it now, right in the back of his fucking throat every time he tried to swallow back his utter disgust. _Worse_ if he didn’t get a few half-convincing photos out of it to flog off to the local rag he’d end up in an unmarked grave somewhere in Russia.

Oh – here they went. Jamie had them lined up at the door. All he could think was thank-fuck this wasn’t video. Photos _lied_. That’s why the press were so fucking fond of them. A few frames here – a bit of careful clipping and you could turn Hiroshima into a BBQ at the local polling booth.

“Give us a smile. Come on lass… I know he’s a terrifying ghoul but I’m going to need-” He trailed off as Sam actually levelled a dashing grin up at Malcolm (who’d forgotten how locks worked).

_Flash. Flash._

“Gonna ‘ave to be more than that...” He muttered, re-aligning his camera. They weren’t going for here-say like the Mail. Nah. Malcolm had been very fucking specific with him over the phone. Ironclad. Irrefutable. Fucking SOLID.

_Fuck._

Jamie’s finger pressed the trigger on the camera before his brain caught up. Tucker, with one hand on the door to keep his body from toppling, had leaned down, tilted his head carefully at the last moment and brushed his lips against Sam’s in a near perfectly framed picture. Like something out of one of those fucking rom-coms he pretended not to buy.

_Flash. Flash. Flash. Flash. Flash._

Jamie had it frame by frame. He felt like a wildlife photographer discovering a previously extinct creature. A moment later it had ended. The pair of them vanished into Malcolm’s house and Jamie was left there, perched behind the bush with a frosted camera and several thousand dollars worth of snaps. “Fucking balls...”

Tucker certainly had them.

“You sad bastard...” Jamie added, as he pried himself from the ground. He knew very well that that Malcolm wouldn’t touch her after that. This was for show. He cared – far too much – to let Sam fall off the deep end with him. That had always been Tucker’s problem. Caring. It was a double edged sword and he was in danger of cutting himself on it. A sane man would have shagged her from one end of the house to the other. Hell, Jamie would do it himself if it wasn’t for the slight complication that Malcolm would cut his cock off and use it as a pencil to fill in DoSAC forms if he ever found out.

*~*~*

It was all over so quickly that neither of them acknowledged the kiss after the door closed. Malcolm’s house was as she remembered except with less open bottles of alcohol. Indeed, he’d cleaned the place within an inch of its life. He must have done that on his own after the last time they’d made a nest out of it. Either that, or he was entertaining flocks of press in his living room again. It was a terrible habit of his.

“Nice and warm,” Sam pointed out, removing her jacket.

“Finally fixed the fucking heater,” he replied, wandering through the house, turning lights on. “First time it’s worked since I bought it in the fourteen-hundreds.”

“You should have gone for the old Roman villas. Their central heating worked a treat.”

“Run on the corpses of Gauls.”

Sam slipped her shoes off as well and left them by the door. She was here all night, after all. “Are Ollie, Julius and Glen joining us this time?”

Malcolm came back into the living room without his jacket wearing a lopsided look of ill-amusement instead. “I’m still not entirely sure how that happened the first time.” He admitted. “I’m going to put fucking GPS collars on those three if they make a habit of appearing at my house unannounced.”

Sam was amused by his displeasure. “I thought we had a policy of barcoding all staff?”

“Trust me, sweetie, you don’t want to know what I do to the staff...”

She merely lofted her eyebrow. The problem with Malcolm was that he was a gentle soul at heart and once you knew that it was difficult to take his threats seriously. “So – this grand tour...”

He was still avoiding that. “Right. Of the house.”

“You’re pacing…” Sam reached out, catching hold of his arm. “I’m not here to tear your life apart,” she added, softly this time. “A quick run through is all I need so that I can recite a few details if I’m ever asked. I’m not going to peel the paint off your bedroom walls and go looking in your wardrobe for bits of ex-Prime Ministers. It’s _me_ , Malcolm.” Sam reminded him. “I keep all your secrets. This will be no different.” Not to mention that he spent half his time kipping on her couch these days.

Malcolm was looking at the hand on his arm. “I – I know that...” He assured her. “It’s only – well… No one’s been past this living room for a long time.”

Sam’s head took on an immediate tilt. This was not about her. It was about his entire history of betrayal. God only knows how many people – probably hacks – slept with him to get at his secrets. No wonder that rumour started about five star hotels (though part of Sam imagined that the stationery closest was probably closer to the truth). “Oh don’t give me that. Jamie was in there last week making coffee in your kitchen.”

Malcolm cracked into laughter. “You’re right. He was. Terrible coffee it was too.”

“Not one of his skills.”

He slipped from her hold and led the way through the first level of his house. “Said kitchen...” It was narrow but well stocked, with Sam found surprising. “And – wine. If you want any of that.” Malcolm wasn’t a packet of noodles and cup of tea sort of man. It was evident that when he was safely away from prying eyes he actually cooked. There were full sets of glasses and plates behind glass cupboard doors suggesting that he also entertained. Those rumours about the Press hanging around were no doubt true.

“Back garden,” he continued, waving absently at the patch of frozen grass with a sad looking tree sticking out of it.

Then it was up the stairs. Like all houses in the area, it was relatively small. There were only two rooms the first of which was his office – which overlooked the road and had a rather pleasant aspect with large windows where the snow tapped softly on the glass. The room was lined with books and political journals. There were neatly organised piles of newspapers and a few front pages that he’d had framed and put on the wall. These were all old with the paper yellowed and faded.

“Trophies?” Sam asked, wandering over to one of them.

“Of sorts...” He admitted. “Back in the early days it was still a novelty. It was a phase that I got over.”

And good thing too. Sam knew that he’d never hear the end of it from Ollie and Glen if they knew that he kept evidence of his kills mounted on the walls.

“What are you doing?” He asked, as Sam crossed over to the desk and settled herself down in his chair. Anybody else and they’d have lost a limb by now. “It is just a chair.”

“A lovely chair,” she replied, before running her hands over the surface of the table. Ah… The rumoured master-diary lay pride of the desk. The place where he kept all his meetings with their real attendees. The version on his phone was basically written in code but this – this was the real McCoy. “I wasn’t even sure that this was real.” She whispered, but made no move to open it. “It has become and item of fiction – a thing of legend. You should burn it...” And she was not even joking with him.

“With that book you could destroy me life...” Malcolm agreed quietly. “No one has ever seen it. Not even Jamie. Aren’t you going to look?”

“No.” Although she was tempted. “It is yours. I am sure that you keep it private for a reason.”

“It is my insurance.” He replied. “Sometimes – not often – but every now and then I need to prove that a certain conversation took place. This is my true and honest record of events. It contains information about meetings that _never officially happened_.”

“I’m surprised that you frequently let the hacks into your house with this lying around.”

“This room is normally locked.”

Which meant that he had unlocked it for her. Sam pushed away from the table slowly, feeling like she was prying into a corner of his life where she had no right. “I see.”

It was not that he minded her being in this room – it was that he _didn’t_ mind and that had Malcolm all the more confused with himself.

“There’s one other room that’s also normally locked,” he added.

She followed him down the hall without a word. He was struggling, she could tell. As they approached the final door, Sam scooted ahead and blocked his path. Her hand rested on the handle of the door.

“Malcolm we don’t...”

“As you said, Sam – it is just a room.” And if he said it with enough conviction he might even believe that.

Their eyes locked until she submitted and stepped aside. Malcolm opened the door and led her into his bedroom.

It was _ordinary_. Sam was not sure what she had expected – perhaps a coffin propped up against the wall? A few medieval rafters for him to hang from of an evening – definitely a bit of Gothic décor… Instead she was presented with something out of a real estate magazine. He was beyond neat except for his coat which he left oddly thrown over a chair in the corner, exactly as he did at work. Sam fought back a reflex reaction to go over and rescue it.

“Disappointed?” He asked, with a slight grin. “I know you were after the Brides of Dracula.”

“Despite a few unkind things that Jamie has printed about you in the past, you are not a vampire, Malcolm.” She inched in further, circling the bed with a wide birth on her way to the window. “You are not going to get into trouble over this lie, are you?” She asked, suddenly serious.

“There is no official protocol surrounding such liaisons.” He assured her. “No repercussions. It is taboo only because most of our ministers are married. I am an oddity.”

“Were you married?”

Malcolm nearly toppled over. Sometimes he forgot that Sam was not privy to any of his personal details beyond what it said in his official file. He wasn’t much above a 2D cut out to the world and that’s how he liked it. “Once.” He admitted. “A long time ago now.”

“And you still wear the ring...”

Of course. What an idiot he was. He _did_ wear the ring. She must have assumed… _God. What did everyone else assume? Probably that he was Bluebeard or something with a tower. That’d fit with his modus operandus._ “I never got around to taking it off.”

“What happened?”

“She died.” He fussed with the ring, turning it around on his finger – which explained why it looked as though it was polished regular. It was a nervous habit. “Car accident. Collision. Must use official vocab these days or they put your head on a spike and hang it from the bridge.” His analogy came off bitter. His colourful language of ‘Tucker’ lost its humour when edged in truth. “We were in the press office together. After I – well I didn’t fancy writing any more garbage about other people’s tragedies. I decided to orchestrate news instead of reporting on it.”

There were cracks appearing in Malcolm’s facade and Sam wasn’t sure she liked watching them tear at the exterior. He was the strong one but underneath she could tell that he was a mess. An absolute fucking mess held together with mirth. If they put him in a prison cell, it wouldn’t be the walls that killed him – it would be the dark shit coming out of his soul. Is this what he found in the bottom of a glass? The reflection of death? Ah… Now she understood Jamie. He must have been there.

“Is this her?” Sam asked, nodding at a picture sitting on the table beside his bed. Of course it was her. There was an infant in the woman’s arms but Sam did not dare to ask after the child’s fate. She had a terrible feeling in the pit of her stomach that Malcolm lost more than a wife in that accident.

“Leaving?” Malcolm asked, as she moved back toward the door.

“I’ve seen enough to answer any inappropriate questions,” she assured him. “We were here all night. You cooked. I mostly drank your wine.”

*~*~*

“Oh – you’re _not_ cooking?” Sam was puzzled as Malcolm hung up the phone, fresh from ordering in.

“I want the receipts for our little lie,” he explained.

As she couldn’t fault his logic, Sam swept her glass of wine off the table and padded over to the TV. They had it on silent – Miller was still dominating the screen but the coverage was starting to break apart – like a thawing lake. Fragments of sport nudged in followed by new bulletins. At this rate, they wouldn’t make front page by Monday. The press – they were so fickle. Toss them a travesty and they’ll flog it into a bore.

Sam lingered, tapping the curve of her glass with the tip of her finger.

“The answer isn’t going to come out of any of those crazy-eyed fucks.” Malcolm pointed out simply, joining her. “I know...” he added, to Sam’s silent question. “It doesn’t make any fucking sense. Maybe Miller is simply a victim of his own insufferable face.”

“We need to find out what Weir is thinking. Don’t you have a vicious little hound you can release?”

“I can rustle up something...”

*~*~*

“Absolutely _not_!” Ollie reeled at the demands shouted down the phone at him. It was late. He was busy sanitising the new minister’s office before Monday – removing all evidence of Malcolm’s previous threats.

“ _I’m not MI5 I’m a – a low-level public slave with – bad coffee and a – poorly lit office.”_ Ollie’s speech was interrupted as he ducked around the office picking up files. _“No – no I expressly_ don’t _want my entrails mailed to the queen. I doubt my girlfriend would care if you did that to my balls. She’s lost interest in them lately after you conscripted me to romance party information out of her. Casanova was a shit – women hate him._ Gawd what is this?” Ollie muttered to himself, as he found a leaflet for Miller’s book he’d been threatening to write. The most boring autobiography in the history of politics – and that was really saying something.

He’d momentarily tuned out to Tucker’s furious diatribe and checked back in on the tail of _‘_ _if you don’t do this I’ll vivisect the dust from your incinerated corpse and perform some very unholy-fucking rituals that begin and end with the lenses from your fucked up eyes.’_

“Really Malcolm, you could try asking nicely. You might be surprised.”

*~*~*

Sam watched Malcolm ball his free hand into a fist, using all of his self control not to hurl his phone into the fireplace.

“ _Please,”_ The word had to be scratched out of Tucker’s throat like a fucking ore extraction. “ _Ollie you fucking petri dish of failure, will you do what I fucking ask?”_ He hung the phone up as aggressively as possible and glared into the flames.

“Feel better?”

“Much...” It was no secret that a bit of light verbal abuse did Malcolm the world of good. “Did you know that Miller was writing a book?”

“Of course. Everyone knew that. He kept circulating samples. I believe it was customary to set fire to them upon receipt.”

A vein in Malcolm’s temple throbbed. He pressed his palm against it, trying to hold his toxic blood in. “See if you can rustle up a copy.”

Sam lofted her eyebrow and settled down on his couch. She reached across, dragging her laptop over. Malcolm left her there and vanished upstairs where he sat in front of his diary and flipped it nearly to the beginning. He was after names. Places. Any detail that the could wretch from pre-history.

*~*~*

At some point, Sam had drifted off on the couch – laptop balanced on her chest – now blissfully in sleep mode. She woke gently to find the room lit only but the blue glow of the muted TV. Malcolm sat on the couch directly opposite, staring into nowhere with his open diary laid across his knees. She wondered how long he had been sitting there, waiting for her to wake. _A while._ She could smell the takeaway that must have arrived and gone cold.

“Malcolm?” She whispered, rising from sleep.

The way she murmured his name sent a shiver through his body that he did his best to ignore. “I’ve been through everything. Nothing. I’ve found _nothing_ .” And if the fire hadn’t died away during the night he might have thrown his diary into its depths. “ This i s – _was_ my safety net and it didn’t catch me.” Tucker was in free fall and he knew it.

“You don’t need it,” she assured him, “you have me.”

Malcolm latched his eyes onto her in reply, holding their gaze until Sam felt herself shake. She wondered what he had been like before this lifetime of politics. Every now and then Sam imagined that she caught glimpses of that life in his eyes if she looked long enough.

“This is only for show,” he reminded her. His words were so cold that they were uttered for _himself_ to heed. “People who drift too close to me are destroyed, Sam.”

She shifted. It was as good as an admission that he’d _considered_ being closer. “It’s not your job to protect me, Malcolm.”

“It is exactly my job.” He insisted. “If you think I’m going to let you walk into the fire with me – leave now...”

Her response was patience. He was reeling over what had happened. He was stuck with his neck in the noose and all his enemies had crawled out of the woodwork in search of his blood. Malcolm was terrified even if he was too stubborn to admit it. “Malcolm,” she replied sternly, “you have to stop protecting me. _This is real_. You’re going to end up in jail and for what – for me? I won’t let you do it.”

Malcolm’s face contorted into a very serious frown. “I won’t let you _not let me_.”

“Malcolm...”

“I asked you to acquire that information in the first place. This is _my_ fault.”

“Actually you didn’t.” Sam corrected his imagined memories. “You lofted your eyebrow in my direction while discussing a _desire_ to have those records. At no point did you ask me. I did it on my own. It was my choice. I did it for you and I shouldn’t have but regardless, I’ll stand by that mistake.”

That prompted Tucker to rise from his couch and cross over to hers, sitting himself down beside her. Despite the obvious danger, Sam had never felt more alive. There was something about him, staring at her in the strange hues of light. He was fierce but also fragile – as though he’d break at the touch of a leaf and bore through crystal nose-first. “Sam,” he started, as his weight made the couch dip. “One of us has to go to jail and it’s not going to be you. End of discussion.”

“You _can’t_ stop me.”

“Of _course_ I can.” He assured her, in no uncertain terms. Malcolm took her hands in his – a very uncharacteristic gesture for a man renowned for his aversion to touch. “Sam, do not make me watch you behind bars because I would. I’d visit you every fucking day and what would be the use in that – in both of us being in hell? You have you _whole life_ ahead of you. Mine’s fucking done. Don’t go wasting five fucking years on me.”

She wanted to look away but his eyes had her fixed. Sam felt the tears only after they fell across her cheeks. Warm. Oddly removed from her.

“Oh, don’t do that.” He begged. “Don’t fucking do that. I’m no good when you do that.”

Sam hadn’t made a sound yet. Despite this last-gasp effort to save themselves she can could quite clearly that Malcolm’s not convinced it will work. He’s done the math. Engaged his paranoia. The prognosis is grim. “What if -” she started, shifting her hands under his, turning them over so that they laced together. “What if we just – just _go_.”

Malcolm’s eyebrows went up in soft surprise then bent at awkward angles as the fleeting hope lingered. “Elope to a beach in that geometric-cock-up where the planes drop out of the sky and the ships sink? Drink cocktails all day with those stupid fucking lurid umbrellas?”

His swearing was a comfort. “Something like that.”

It was a fantasy that barely lived a breath before his face fell. “And your life – your family – everything you have here?”

_He really was a stupid bugger_ , Sam realised. _He had on idea_. “It’s just you, you idiot. You’re the only thing I have.”

Malcolm went to pull his hands away from her but she held him tight. He wasn’t running from this and although she might thorough-fucking-ly regret it they were running out of road and the _‘STOP’_ signs were on a lean and just beyond the last corner the edge lingered, clear and final. “Sam?” It was a warning and a question. He was not sure he wanted to travel this road with her.

“Shut the _fuck up_ , for once.”

Tucker nearly swallowed his fucking tongue along with his shock. “O-kay...”

“I’ve followed you into this shit-storm, what makes you think I wouldn’t fall off the cliff? You are _such_ a blind, thick, moronic, self-righteous, reckless, sanctimonious martyr!”

“That was more than one adjective for stupid.” Tucker immediately regretted that rebuttal and Sam wasn’t finished with him.

“You spend all your time pretending that you don’t give a fuck about anyone on this Earth but from what I can tell your downfall is caring _too much_. You care about this party – about the public they represent and the principles that every other sorry excuse for a minister has forgotten in the raging, never-ending battle for the leadership. They’re all noise to you it’s no wonder you treat them like confetti.”

Tucker was absolutely floored by her clarity. How long had she thought this way?

“You care so intensely,” Sam continued, “that you do dangerous things in its honour. Here we are – inches from falling on your sword and no one will thank you for it because they’re too busy shitting themselves for coming so close to the flames. Without you, this country is a storm of fists at a bloodthirsty fight club. Now, you listen to me...” She inched in closer, making sure that he was paying attention. “Either we leave this house tomorrow on the same page or we vanish, together.”

She was so ardently on his side, so completely with him that he was honestly bewildered by the revelation. He wasn’t a complete idiot. Malcolm realised that she was devoted to her job, that she must harbour at least some affection for his carcass (fuck knows why) and that perhaps she extended that to friendship – as close as that could be defined with the distance he maintained but _never_ did he dare to assume that it was more than that.

“Sam – _Sam_ I could kiss you.”

Her lip curled into an affectionate smile. She’d had to take a sledge hammer to his reason but the message appeared to be getting through. “Please do.”


	24. Chapter 24

Their noses brushed and Malcolm pulled back – both of them grinning, soft and innocent. Sam reached up and took him by that ridiculous tie she’d told him not to wear in public and dragged him down toward her. They met. A kiss. A folding of time where physics and politics blurred into nothing. There was only _him_ , her monster in the darkness.

Malcolm’s eyes slid closed. His hand lifted, brushing against her shoulder to steady himself and the fucking world. It was tender to the point of painful – the way they tilted slightly, lips trembling. _This is how stars collapse_ , he thought.

_Not a good idea._

No, Malcolm revised his  insidious commentary,  _it’s a fucking terrible idea._

Except he played his cards like a junior minister and ignored his better judgement. Leaning in, Malcolm slid his free hand into Sam’s thick hair as caution gave way to something deeper.

“Jesus _Christ_!”

M alcolm and Sam snapped apart, forced to opposing sides of the couch like a pair of South poles on a magnet.

“Cunt!” Hissed Malcolm, surreptitiously wiping his lips before throwing imagined daggers from his snarling gaze toward a bewildered Jamie – whose eyeballs were on the verge of popping free like a set of cheap marbles.

“Now I’ll have to gouge that horrific vista with industrial bleach popularised by American serial killers. Yeah. Laugh if you will. Then I’ll apply for those new bionic terminator things that make a wee buzzing sound when they witness something repulsive – like yer havin’ a bit o’ a fiddle with yer secretary.”

“What the _fuck_ are yer doin’ in my house?!” Malcolm lashed out, cutting Jamie mid-stream.

Jamie stumbled off balance. He was used to being the loudest object  in orbit – the lion of the savannah but Malcolm was king of the pride and had no trouble swatting him down with a paw full of  _how fucking dare you_ claws the size of th ird world debt. “ Oh – oh I’m  _sorry_ ,” Jamie raised his hands. “I’m yer fucking Christmas elf. Yeah. Got me pointy elf hat an’ all.” He gestured at his head covered in swiftly melting snow. “Popped into Marc’s and Spencer for some red-striped leggings and a fucking candy cane pole to smack you across the face with.” The  _pole_ was implied to be the early print of the newspaper rolled up in his hand, sodden and smeared. He tossed it into Malcolm’s lap, knocking more than his temper flat. “The only upside is that you’ve won me fifty quid off the Prime Minister. Cunt’s got no imagination an’ now I don’t need one.”

T he paper unfurled over Malcolm’s lap of its own volition, revealing a double page spread of him and Sam, locked in a brief embrace at his front door with perfectly reasonable heading,  _‘Love and Monsters’_ .

“The words yer are looking for, Malcolm, are _thank yer very fucking much for doing the impossible –_ an’ making yer looking like the same fucking species as Sam. It wasn’ easy and the distance helped. Got a pretty shit zoom on my camera an’ all.”

Malcolm mulled the image over, lips dragged back from his fangs. “You’re a cunt, Jamie. A useful fucking unruly-bush. Less of a hedge and more of an out of control thicket that’s been poisoned twice and lived to tell the tale.” He tapped the photo, his fury tamed. That was _exactly_ what he was after.

Sam fought a blush. She wasn’t sure if it was from the interrupted kiss, the enormous photo of her in a national paper or the awkward fact that she knew what _both_ men in the room tasted like. Probably all three with a bonus _everyone will think we’re shagging_ on the side. “E-excuse me,” she stammered, standing. “I need more wine.”

“Drink up, luv...” Jamie advised. “An’ bring the bottle back with yer. Think I might shove it down my own neck and have a go at choking ter death. Brought my fishnets and all.”

“Envious?” Tucker tossed the paper on the table.

“Bit of PTSD settlin’ in, actually. Post-Tucker-Sexual-Dysfunction.”

“Ha ha ha...” Tucker falsified a laugh. “Not Pretty-Tragic-Sodding-Dilemma because that’s what we’re all trapped in. Yer natural talent for long-lensing aside we’ve still got a dead minister ter bury an’ someone’s nicked all the shovels.”

Jamie shook his head and directed the next comment to Sam, who was working her way through a bottle all on her own in the kitchen. “You wanna watch out for Malcolm. He’s like a fucking antidote to lust. I mean, there’s the entire spectrum of human desire from Kristin Scott Topless to that boiled silicon hybrid they 3D printed for Embarrassing Bodies. Then there’s _this_...” Jamie pointed to the demon lurking on the sofa. “That sharp-angled  bastard. Submerged in the primordial swamp for so long he developed a taste fer the dark arts. Can turn perfectly normal human beings into masses of pulverised scalp and bits of eyeball simply by saying their name over his radio. I’ve seen him there, hunched over the wireless like a crystal fucking ball.”

Sam lost it. There was nothing she could do. Hand over mouth, she started shaking with laughter.

Malcolm wasn’t sure what he hated more. Jamie’s enjoyment of the situation or Sam’s amusement. “Would yer stop talkin’ rubbish you twat an’ sit down. Yer metaphors have marbled into a wash of grey. It’s a fucking disappointment you know. I gave yer a thesaurus fer your birthday an’ you never fucking use it.”

As Jamie sat, he put his hand on Malcolm’s thigh. “It’s all right, Malc-y old boy. Yer can tell me.” Then, in a whisper. “Are you shagging Sam?”

“Jealousy doesn’t suit your over-eager eyebrows.”

Jamie snapped his hand away as if it had caught in the flames of hell. “It is not _jealousy_. It’s concern.” He had to pause as Sam snorted in laugher. She was really starting to lose it, bent over a bottle of wine. “For the integrity of the human gene pool. I have a vested interest in its survival. If yer breed there’ll be things in there with three eyes and horns.”

“Don’t stand there and lecture _me_ on the forces of darkness.”

“You raised me.”

“Aye. I did. On a choker leash. Don’t make me go an’ give it a tug now or your diamond studs might fall off all over the Daily Mail.” Malcolm craned his head slightly so that he cough watch Sam almost choke on her wine. He could tell that she was trying her best not to laugh but when something set her off good and proper there was nothing to do but weather the storm. “This-” he flashed the paper at Jamie, “-is some fine fucking work. Don’t go an’ unpick it all by being a prick.”

Jamie glanced over to the kitchen as another fit of muffled laughs erupted. “She going to be all right?”

“Probably. Usually I just give ‘em a bit of a shake. Seems to fix most things.”

Sam managed to wander, placing a half empty bottle of wine on the table which Malcolm picked up to examine with a worried lofted eyebrow. “Honestly,” she said, “if you were trying to keep the bromance low-key you failed at the outset. I can catch a ride home with the press pack outside if you wish to be alone.”

“No – you sit as well.” Malcolm insisted.

“I’m not one of your pets...” She assured him. “This is all smoke and mirrors,” she gestured vaguely at the newspaper. “If Weir comes after you with something more solid than a ball point pen, it won’t be enough.” Sam sat anyway. “Poor Miller.”

“ _Poor-fucking-Miller?_ ” Jamie rolled the words off, barely able to fathom the sentiment. “You _hated_ that cardboard ken doll. In your own words, ‘the most inflexible piece of stationery in the cupboard’.”

“That’s true.” Malcolm nodded. “I remember when you suggested we use him as a piñata to amuse the freshly blooded ministers. Fill him with free political launch ideas and watch them fight to the death over his strung up corpse.”

She flinched. That sounded considerably worse given the circumstances. “Is that someone at the door, Malcolm?” Sam stood to answer it but there was a hand on her arm at once, holding her back.

“Probably better if I do that.” Said Malcolm, slipping past her.

That was true. It was his house after all. Sam waited with Jamie – who was sniffing around the wine. “Is – is it really so terrible?” She asked, quietly. “What – what you saw?”

Jamie turned the bottle around in his hand so that he could peruse the label. Not that he could read it particularly well without the glasses he never told anyone that he had to wear. “It’s a cliché,” Jamie replied, pouring himself a glass. “The mad bastard thought he was too eccentric to end up as one. It’ll do him some good. A reminder.”

“A reminder of _what_ , exactly?”

“That’s he’s a fucking living creature,” Jamie replied, with more warmth than even he expected. He set the glass down suddenly and pricked his ear to the commotion going on at the front door. “What the fuck is that then...” he said, scampering down the hall tailed by Sam.

He’d expected reporters or that fucking possessed scarf Malcolm kept draped over DoSAC – not blue and white fairy lights flashing in the snow. _Shit._ Jamie thought, one hand on the hallway wall as he approached the door. _Fucking shit._ Malcolm was turned around as Jamie reached the door, his hands pulled firmly behind his back and a set of extremely non-humorous cuffs attached to his wrists. It was Malcolm’s eyes that caught Jamie. They were slightly dead. _Afraid_. That wasn’t the Tucker he knew. That wasn’t the Tucker that left a massive trail of blood behind him at Number 10 on his way out.

“Not a fucking _word_ ,” was all Malcolm said, as the police pulled him from the front door into the snow.

Sam arrived, full flight. Jamie caught her by the arms and dragged her back from the door. “Malcolm?” She panicked, writhing in Jamie’s arms, fighting to free herself. “What – what’s happening? Where are you – Malcolm?”

Lights flashed. This time from beside the door as Malcolm was led to one of the cars. There were press lining the footpaths. Enticed by the promise of elicit romance they’d stayed for the show and were now treated to the sound of Sam’s desperate cries, turning their lenses toward her.


End file.
